By Ted Belman
You all remember the Anti-racism Conference in Durban which was unparalleled in its hatred towards Israel. How could you not? Revisiting the trauma of the Durban conference
Well its to be inflicted on us again.
Following the active role nongovernmental organizations played in Durban in 2001, NGO Monitor has expressed concerns about politicized groups taking part in the 2009 conference. The Jerusalem based organization has submitted to the Preparatory Committee a detailed analysis of the impact that would result from these groups’ involvement. It has urged the committee to carefully examine the credibility and biases resulting from NGO participation in order to avoid a repeat of Durban.
“Although these NGOs claim to promote universal human rights, the record shows that in reality, they advance biased agendas based on a highly distorted narrative that exploits and undermines international law,” NGO Monitor said. “Several of these NGOs, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty, played an active role in the NGO Forum in 2001. Rather than provide objective information to address the crucial issue of eliminating discrimination in all its forms, and through universal standards, many statements of these NGOs and their activities during the 2001 NGO Forum included highly inflammatory rhetoric and even antiseemitic material, such as comparing Israel to Nazi Germany.
“The Final Declaration of the Forum endorsed the singling-out of Israel through a campaign that called for sanctions and boycotts against Israel through the abuse of the principles of human rights and international law,”
“The question is whether UN Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour and others who claim to be committed to human rights will take the action that [then-UN high commissioner for human rights] Mary Robinson failed to in 2001 and prevent this farce. Furthermore, will the major NGO superpowers, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which added their weight to the 2001 Durban travesty, repeat this role?
“In contrast, the Israeli Foreign Ministry, in cooperation with the US and perhaps other democratic governments, have heeded NGO Monitor’s analysis, and are actively raising these dangers with NGO funders, including the EU and its member governments, who fund these radical NGOs,”
It is Arbour, Robinson, Amnesty International and HRW who will be in the dock.
It is inconceivable that such a conference dares to raise its head just seventy years after the holocaust. Elie Wiesel thought that the holocaust would be the deathbed of antisemitism. Apparently not.
No one should count on Louise Arbour to do anything but ensure that Durban II runs smoothly in accord with the terms of its mandate. After all she possesses formidable judicial talents and was a former justice of Canada’s Supreme Court. That might say good things about Louise Arbour in her past life. There is nothing good to say of her in her new life.
With human rights violaters and Jew hating nations such as Lybia chairing this preparatory meeting and the other anti-Semitic and human rights violators such as Iran in attendance, this Conference is filled with promise to carry on the works of Durban I.
It is unclear however whether the Ford Foundation is again co-sponsoring and funding this conference that has all the makings of being convened to carry on from where Durban I left off.
Unless the Ford Foundation recognizes there was something very wrong in its speaking out on behalf of human rights and against terrorism, while sponsoring Durban I where it was consorting with and supporting human rights violators and terrorists in their singling out Israel for demonization and denigration, Ford Motors should be boycotted by every right thinking person who will not stand for Ford Foundation’s blatant hypocisy.