farmdoc's blog post number 365

Today, in Geneva, is the opening of the Durban Review Conference (‘Durban II’) aiming to review progress and assess implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA). At the 2001 World Conference against Racism in Durban, the DDPA was adopted by consensus – only because the US and Israel walked out to protest that Conference’s virulent anti-Semitism. Durban II’s being run by the UN Human Rights Council which in its almost three years of existence has passed 32 resolutions, 26 of them against Israel. That Libya chaired Durban II’s planning committee which includes Iran and Cuba, and that Iran’s President Ahmadinejad is keynote speaker at the Conference’s opening session (ironically on Hitler’s birthday and the eve of Yom Hashoah), speaks for itself. Also host-country Switzerland has pointedly declined to chair the Conference. Yesterday the US, Holland and Australia announced they’re not attending, and New Zealand, Germany and Poland too, thus joining Israel, Canada, Sweden and Italy who are staying away, fearing a repeat of the 2001 fiasco. (I am proud of my country’s government’s decision.) Inside the UN’s Geneva compound, the two large tents that have been erected to handle the expected large crowds, symbolise the remnant of Durban II – a circus. Whatever happens now can’t change the conclusion that the Durban process – based on demonising Israel – has now been exposed, ridiculed and perhaps defeated. So it should be a long, long time before the UN agrees to another such circus.