The blog of UN Watch: monitoring the United Nations, promoting human rights.
The Durban Review Conference, the UN’s world racism confab set for next April in Geneva, will be a highly visible, amply funded, well-advertised and attended gathering that will focus the world’s attention on the West’s defamation of Islam and racial discrimination against its adherents, as well as on Israel’s racist persecution of Palestinians. That was the goal expressed by Islamic states and their allies at a UN Human Rights Council debate this Tuesday.
See UN summary below.
The first outline for the declaration to emerge from the 2009 Durban Review Conference breaches the red lines set forth by France, the UK, Netherlands and other EU governments, with special references to the Palestinians as victims of Israeli racism.
On May 27 in Geneva, the UN working group tasked with preparing the outcome document of the April 2009 conference circulated a “non-paper“ – setting forth the “inventory of issues” to serve as the skeleton of the final declaration — that singles out Israel twice, raising the specter that the Jewish state will, like in 2001, stand specially accused of racism.
First, under the header “Victims of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance,” the draft document’s list of “Victims Identified by the Study of Experts under the Inter-Governmental Working Group” makes a special reference to the Palestinians, with Israel by implication cast as a racist perpetrator.
The relevant paragraph:
People under foreign occupation: The protection of the civilian population under foreign occupation has been on the agenda of the international community for a long time. The history of armed conflicts shows that the particular vulnerability of this group is dramatically enhanced if it is connected to racial or ethnic distinction from the occupying power. The Durban Declaration expresses concern about the plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupation.
Second, under “contemporary forms of racism as reported by different countries,” Israel is again singled out, in the document’s summary of Iran’s national report. To be sure, Iran’s 7-page report to the conference does single out Israel. So should the UN be faulted for accurately summarizing one country’s report?
The answer is that not everything submitted by every country is required to be included in the universal outcome document.
Indeed, it is rather curious that when Iran’s seven pages on numerous topics are reduced to merely one paragraph, the UN document makes certain to include the reference to the Palestinians.
The offending paragraph:
Iran
There is an increase in racist violence and xenophobia in many parts of the world as well as of defamation of religion, the rejection of diversity and Islamophobia or incitement against Islam. Comment is made on the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which constitutes a violation of a wide range of civil and political rights.
European states have insisted they will not tolerate any repeat of the anti-Semitism of the 2001 Durban conference, which sought to delegitmize the Jewish state by singling it out with the racist label.
“[T]he Durban conference in 2001 led to intolerable excesses from certain states and numerous NGOs that turned the conference into a forum against Israel, and no one has forgotten,” said President Sarkozy in February, promising to disengage from the process “if ever our legitimate demands are not taken into account.”
With the draft outcome document (in its formative stage as an “inventory of issues” non-paper) now threatening to turn the conference — as Sarkozy rightly put it — “into a forum against Israel,” will the EU now defend their red lines, maintaining the threat to walk out if these are not respected?
The UN opened its “International Meeting on the Question of Palestine” in Malta yesterday.
Led by Paul Badji of Senegal, Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, the conference identified the main obstacles to peace, particularly “the continued construction of Israeli settlements and the separation barrier, restrictions on movement in the occupied West Bank, violence and humanitarian suffering in Gaza, the plight of refugees, [and] the status of Jerusalem.” There were no references to Palestinian suicide terrorists or Qassam rockets fired daily by Palestinians against Israeli civlians in Sderot and Ashkelon.
Those participating in the ritual Israel-bashing included Cuba on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement, Malaysia, Tunisia, Madagascar, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
Interestingly, some participants referred to the challenge to the peace process posed by “differences among Palestinians” — a gentle euphemism for Hamas’ violent takeover of Gaza.
To read more, click here.
Reported by Toby W. Frankenstein
The General Assembly today elected by acclamation Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann of Nicaragua as President of its sixty-third session to begin in September. Mr. Brockmann – a Catholic priest who is described as a “stern critic” of the United States – delivered an inaugural address in which he called for greater “democratization” of the United Nations, increased efforts to combat hunger, poverty, and terrorism, as well as more cooperation on climate change, human rights, and disarmament.
“Our nations must be united in the struggle to democratize the United Nations… I firmly believe solidarity is essential to ensure that we achieve our common goals,” said Ambassador Brockmann. “I firmly believe in the revitalizing power of love.”
What the ex-Sandinista means by “democracy,” of course, is more power at the UN to dictatorships like Syria, Zimbabwe and Cuba, and less to elected liberal democracies on the Security Council like the U.S., France and the U.K.
In a jab at the
“The president of the General Assembly is supposed to be a uniter,” said Richard Grenell, a spokesman for the U.S. Mission. “We have made it clear that these crazy comments are not acceptable, and we hope he refrains from this talk and gets to work on General Assembly business.”
For more, click here.
Despite our urgent appeal to Amnesty International (AI) Secretary-General Irene Khan, she went ahead and appeared on an AI Switzerland panel with Jean Ziegler, Qaddafi’s chief ally at the UN. Although AI Switzerland’s press summary omits mention of Ziegler, the agenda of the Berne annual meeting shows the April 19, 2008 morning panel of Khan, Swiss FM Micheline Calmy-Rey, and Jean Ziegler, and was reported by Swissinfo. To her credit, as the latter article describes, Khan rapped Calmy-Rey for failing the cause of human rights in her recent trip to Iran.
Because our colleagues at Amnesty International often do such important work, we regret the undue legitimacy they granted to Ziegler, a human rights impostor. And we hope Ms. Khan will respond to our letter.
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