The U.S. and Israel dramatically announced simultaneously in
Washington and Jerusalem Monday night that they would be
leaving the UN conference against racism currently taking
place in Durban, South Africa. There were rumors that Canada
would also leave but meanwhile it has decided to stay.
The decision comes after frustration over the way the entire
conference was subverted by the narrow hatred of Arab
opportunists desiring to denounce Israel and not deal with the
real issues of world racism, and the specific failure of the
U.S. and Israel to water down the viciously anti-Israel
language of the resolutions proposed to summarize the work of
the conference.
"Today, I have instructed our representatives at the world
conference to return home," U.S. Secretary of State Colin
Powell said in a statement, which was issued simultaneously in
Washington and Durban, where the conference was in its fourth
day.
"I have taken this decision with regret because of the
importance of the international fight against racism and the
contribution that this conference could have made to it," he
said. "But following discussions today by our team in Durban
and others who are working for a successful conference, and
others, I am convinced that it will not be possible."
In Jerusalem, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres announced Israel's
decision to leave, explaining that there is no chance to
change the "ugly and insulting decision" drafted by the
conference.
"We have instructed our delegation in Durban to come back
home," Peres said at a news conference timed to coincide with
the U.S. announcement. "We regret very much the very bizarre
show in Durban. An important convention that's supposed to
defend human rights became a source of hatred. . . . We don't
feel defeated. We feel peace was defeated. We don't feel as
though Israel was accused. I think the accusers are the ones
to be blamed.
"The Durban conference is a farce," he said.
He expressed gratitude to the 43 states that opposed the "one-
sided decision" of the Arab and Muslim leagues.
"These countries saved world respect from deteriorating to the
low level of lies and incitement," Peres said, adding that he
had hoped that the "truth would prevail over the hatred."
The decision to bolt the conference apparently came after
Egypt, Syria and Iran indicated that they would reject a
Norwegian bridging proposal that would have adopted a generic
anti-racism resolution, without singling out any country by
name.
According to Shimon Samuels, head of the Simon Wiesenthal
Center's Paris office and head of the Jewish caucus in Durban,
the Egyptians insisted in a negotiating session with the
Norwegians that Israel be termed a racist state; the Syrians
repeated Holocaust-denial statements; and the Iranians
declared that antisemitism was not a form of contemporary
racism that should be dealt with at the conference.
After that, Samuels said, it became clear that there would be
no chance to water down the resolutions.
Alan Baker, the Israel Foreign Ministry's legal advisor and
deputy head of Israel's mission in Durban, told a throng of
journalists at the conference last night that "no rational
argument has carried any weight with the Arab countries and
the Palestinians determined to attack us."
Baker said that not only has Israel been "uniquely singled
out, but that totally false accusations and lies unrelated to
the purpose of the conference have been flung at us."
Saying that the conferences has been "hijacked," Baker said,
"We have been forced to the conclusion that there is no
purpose in our being here."
Baker said that "Israel deeply regrets that the noble aims of
the conference have been perverted."
Israel and American sources said that an "alternative to the
Durban conference," where leading intellectuals and leaders
will voice support of Israel, is being planned, and is likely
to take place in Jerusalem in the next few weeks.
Diplomats had desperately tried to find middle ground between
Israel and the U.S., both of which objected strongly to the
draft declarations, and Arab and Muslim states, which wanted
Israeli actions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip condemned.
"It seems that despite extraordinary efforts by the American
government reaching back many months, it will prove impossible
for the American delegation to continue participating at this
conference," Congressman Tom Lantos, a U.S. delegate, said.
"Those who have made it their goal to hijack the conference
for their propaganda purposes apparently have shown in the
course of the day a degree of rigidity and unwillingness to
compromise," he told reporters.
Mordechai Yedid, Israel's representative to the conference,
said that Israel would only be satisfied if the conference
ended with no condemnation of Israel, no signaling it out
among all the nations of the world, and no hate language.
"Racism, in all its forms, is one of the most widespread and
pernicious evils, depriving millions of hope and fundamental
rights," Yedid read in an unemotional manner from a text
originally written for another Israeli delegate who did not
attend because of the way things were going. "It may have been
hoped that this first conference of the 21st century would
have taken up the challenge of, if not eradicating racism, at
least disarming it. But instead humanity is being sacrificed
to a political agenda."
He said that barely a decade after the UN repealed the Zionism-
is-racism resolution, "a group of states for whom the terms
`racism,' `discrimination,' and even `human rights' simply do
not appear in their domestic lexicon have hijacked this
conference and plunged us to even greater depths. Can there be
a greater irony than the fact that a conference convened to
combat the scourge of racism should give rise to the most
racist declaration in a major international organization since
World War II?
"I fear, deeply, for the victims of racism," he said, "for the
slaves, the disenfranchised, the oppressed, the inexplicably
hated, the impoverished, the despised, the millions who turn
their eyes to this hall in the frail hope that it may address
their suffering, who see instead that a blind and venal hatred
of the Jews has turned their hopes into a farce. For them I
fear."
