The American Jewish Committee Missteps on Durban II
by Jerry Gordon (March 2009)
, taking part in this process of delegitimizing the Jewish state while pretending to put a brake on the process, is one Felice Gaer, a senior official of the
Come on, Caroline. You can do better — if you take off the blinders.
Negotiators have now put on the table claims that:
(1) a homeland for the Jewish people is racism – a “racially based law of return,”
(2) Israel is guilty of “apartheid” and
(3) the veracity of the murder of one-third of the Jewish people during the Holocaust is subject to question.
A reference to Holocaust facts has now been “square-bracketed” because Iran and Syria have questioned the numbers of Jews that died and consensus is the only guiding principle governing the decision-making process.
In total, six provisions are dedicated to demonizing Israel as racist. Not one of the other 191 UN states is mentioned. The intention is clear: the political defeat of Israel in the same vein as apartheid South Africa, because repeated attempts at a military defeat of Israel have failed.
But Israel is not the only target of Islamic and Arab states and their developing world partners. The draft takes straight aim at freedom of expression and counter-terrorism. Free speech should supposedly be curtailed by new laws against “projecting negative, insulting and derogatory images of religions and religious personalities” and the introduction of “a code of ethical conduct” for the media.Statement issued, Feb. 18th by Gordon K. Duguid, Acting Deputy Spokesman of the US Geneva mission:
We sent this delegation to work with countries that want to achieve a successful review conference that focuses on combating racism, racial discrimination and other forms of intolerance and to explore whether it is going to be possible to focus the Durban Review Conference on these serious issues. The United States had not previously participated in preparations for the Durban Review Conference because of our strong reservations about the direction of the conference, as the draft document singles out Israel for criticism, places unacceptable restrictions on freedom of expression under the guise of defaming religion, and calls for payment of reparations for slavery.
European Union: We have a new proposal under the section on education and awareness-raising that would recall the U.N. General Assembly resolution on the remembrance of the Holocaust. It would read:
Urges states to raise awareness and to implement U.N. General Assembly resolutions 60/7 and 61/255 which inter alia observes that the remembrance of the Holocaust is critical to prevent further acts of genocide, condemns without reservation any denial of the Holocaust and urges all states to reject denial of the Holocaust as an historical event, either in full, or in part, or any activities to this end.
Iran: My delegation thinks that this is an inappropriate place to incorporate this new paragraph, so we request that this new paragraph be put in brackets.
Palestine: I would like to propose a new paragraph which reads as follows:
Calls for an end of all actions violating international human rights and humanitarian law, the respect for the principle of self-determination and an end of all suffering. Calls also for implementation of international legal obligations, including the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the wall, and the international protection of the Palestinian people throughout the occupied Palestinian territory.
Instead, the Palestinian and EU delegations have confirmed that in a backroom deal, the EU agreed ahead of time not to object. Members of the American delegation might not have known of the arrangement in advance (highly unlikely), but regardless, they got tongue-tied when it mattered.
The new paragraph is scheduled to appear in a section called “Identification of further concrete measures and initiatives at all levels for combating and eliminating all manifestations of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance . . .” with the subtitle “General provisions on victims and grounds of discrimination.” The Obama administration has decided to boycott the so-called Durban II conference out of concerns for anti-Semitism.
Multiple sources on a conference call with the White House on Friday told JTA that the Obama administration had opted not to attend any further preparatory meetings ahead of the planned U.N. conference against racism in Geneva in April.
Now that the United States is withdrawing from the conference, European nations are expected to follow.
To comment on this article, please click here.
To help New English Review continue to publish timely and interesting articles like this one, please click here.
Jerry Gordon is a also regular contributor to our community blog. To read his entries, please click here.