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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review March 12, 2008 / 5 Adar II 5768

Time for U.S. to reject U.N.'s anti-democratic conference

By Claudia Rosett


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | If a group of despotic governments wants to organize a global mega-conference dedicated to fueling hatred of Jews, Israel and the United States, the United Nations might not be able to stop it. But surely the U.N. would at least refuse to organize, bankroll and host such an outrage?


Think again. The United Nations has done it before, in 2001, with a gathering in South Africa known as the Durban conference. There, after preparatory meetings in places such as Geneva and Tehran, the "Death to Israel! Death to America" discourse waxed so virulent that then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell ordered the U.S. delegation to walk out.


Now the United Nations is planning a repeat performance, location yet to be finalized - billed as a "review" of the results of Durban, round one. So far, Durban II is shaping up to be at least as vile as Durban I, and possibly worse. The United Nations has come up with a 20-member executive planning committee headed by Libya, has Cuba as its rapporteur, and includes such bastions of official intolerance as Russia, Pakistan and Iran (which, along with its record of supporting terrorism, threatening the existence of Israel, and hosting one of the preparatory meetings for Durban I, has experience organizing such hate-fests as its 2006 Holocaust cartoon contest).


So nasty are the portents that Canada recently did the right thing and took the lead in announcing that rather than lend any legitimacy to this outrage by taking part, the Canadian government would boycott Durban II.


Right now the Bush administration ought to be racing to back up Canada by announcing a U.S. boycott. That would help set an example for other democratic governments, such as those of Western Europe.


But no. Instead, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice keeps nudging the final decision down the road. The State Department has been politely protesting and voting against plans for the conference (only to be outvoted at every turn) but is still leaving open the possibility that in 2009 the United States might show up for the main event.


Last month, at a budget hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., asked Rice if the Bush administration would follow Canada's lead and announce a boycott. Her reply, slippery in the extreme, was that while "we have no intention of participating in something like Durban I," there is still a wait-and-see approach to Durban II: "We have not tried to make any decision on this."


What's to wait for? While the Bush administration fiddles, Durban II, with all its nasty portents, is becoming ever more entrenched as a mainstream U.N. project. Last year, despite a series of protest votes from the United States, the conference planners arranged to get millions in funding from the U.N.'s regular budget - 22 percent of which is bankrolled by U.S. taxpayers. The preparatory committee, starring Libya, Iran, Pakistan and Cuba, is overseen by the U.N.'s Geneva-based Human Rights Council, an outfit stocked with veteran talent at trashing Israel and the United States. This council was set up two years ago to replace the twisted old Human Rights Commission, which catered so thoroughly to tyrants that in 2003 it finally embarrassed even the United Nations by choosing Libya as its chair. The same Libyan ambassador who held that post, Najat Al-Hajjaji, is now presiding over preparations for Durban II. And the new, "reformed" Human Rights Council has picked up where its predecessor left off - issuing more condemnations of Israel since 2006 than of any other nation on the planet.


In theory, the aim of these Durban conclaves is to fight racism - a worthy cause, when honestly invoked. But at the U.N., there is a long and ugly tradition of hijacking the word racism to serve as an Orwellian signal for ganging up on Israel and other democratic states. That's how the U.N. produced its malignant 1975 resolution saying "Zionism is a form of racism" - which was repealed in 1991, only after a fierce campaign by the United States.


Now we have Durban II in the making, with the next preparatory meeting scheduled for April in Geneva. It ought to be decision time at the State Department.


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Claudia Rosett is journalist in residence with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington


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