EYEontheUN ALERT - DURBAN II

[editor]

EYEontheUN ALERT - DURBAN II

EYEontheUN
August 24, 2007

UN anti-racism body now taking applications from racists seeking to participate in UN Durban II conference

The UN today released a list of NGOs lined up to participate in the planning of the 2009 UN anti-racism conference. The list includes NGOs with a history of engaging in anti-semitic and anti-Israel activities. Participation will be approved, barring objection from the conference preparatory committee - a group involving such human rights stalwarts as Iran, Libya, Cuba and Pakistan. The PrepCom will begin to consider the details surrounding participation when it meets for the first time from August 27 through August 31, 2007 in Geneva.

Among the list of future UN partners with objectives at odds with an anti-racism agenda are:

* Ahali Center for Community Development - objects to Israel's Declaration of Independence and the proclamation of a "Jewish state"

* Women Association, Follower of Ahlul-Bait - advocates "we must put an end to Zionist racist crimes"

* Human Rights Monitor, Iran - disseminates documents alleging "the racist policies of the Israeli government are an extreme form of racism and discrimination..."

* Palestinian Human Rights Organization - constantly refers to Israel in quotation marks.

This is not harmless UN-sponsored verbiage. Anti-semitism -- intolerance and inequality against the Jewish people and its state -- and other forms of racism encourage terrorism. There seems to be little prospect, however, of excluding NGOs who intend to transform this forum into one more UN venue for promoting anti-semitism and the demonization of Israel.

Rather than call for new applications for Durban II, the UN chose to approve the same list of NGO participants that took part in Durban I -- unless the preparatory committee receives objections and decides otherwise. Governments have 14 days to object to any NGO name on the list.

NGOs already having formal UN Economic and Social Council accreditation are not subject to the review and can automatically participate. These include Durban I participants such as:

* ADALAH, The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel - claims there is "a contradiction between Zionism and the right to equality and non-discrimination"

* ITTIJAH, Union of Arab Community Based Associations - produces literature entitled 'Zionism Racism- Israel Apartheid'

* Al-Haq, Law in the Service of Man - advocates applying to Israel the same "comprehensive mandatory sanctions...and the political, economic, military and cultural isolation" once applied to South Africa.

Another UN-accredited NGO entitled to participate is the International Islamic Relief Organization, which recently had its Indonesia and Philippines Branches put on the U.S. Treasury Department's Specially Designated Nationals List for "facilitating fundraising for al-Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups."

Source: http://www.eyeontheun.org/view.asp?l=36&p=353

[editor]

U.N. meetings raise fears of Durban II

By Ben Harris
JTA
25 August 2007

NEW YORK - Jewish groups are casting a watchful eye on the first preparatory meetings for what some are calling Durban II, the follow-up to the infamous U.N.-sponsored conference against racism in 2001.

The World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, held in Durban, South Africa on the eve of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was a scandal of global proportions, according to Jewish officials who were present. Representatives of Jewish non-governmental organizations were harassed, sometimes physically, while anti-Semitic propaganda -- including copies of "Mein Kampf" and the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" -- were freely distributed. The Israeli and American delegations walked out in protest.

On Monday, governments will meet in Geneva to begin preparations for a follow-up conference, due to be held in 2009, that has some groups worried that a repeat of the 2001 debacle is in the works.

"What we saw emerge from there is the script that the Jewish world is struggling with right now," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. "Apartheid was consecrated there. Divestment, apartheid, sanctions -- in some ways also the first sort of introduction of an approach in which it was no longer a matter of where Israel's borders should be, it was an assault on Israel's right to exist."

Several decisions that may be taken next week are considered key determinants of whether the 2009 conference will follow the lead of Durban I -- among them, the conference's size and location, the extent to which NGOs will participate, and whether the final document from the Durban conference, known as the plan of action, will be reconsidered.

Already, some developments are worrying Jewish activists. Libya has been selected as the chair of the planning committee, which also includes Iran and Cuba. The U.N. Human Rights Council, the body deemed by many in the Jewish world to be even worse for Israel than its discredited predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights, was designated to oversee the preparations. And the United States, which could potentially blunt the worst anti-Israel excesses, will not officially participate in the planning meeting.

On Thursday, the United Nations released a list of NGOs wishing to participate in the 2009 conference that includes a number of Palestinian and Arab groups known for their vigorous opposition to Zionism and the Jewish state.

"We're very concerned," said Sybil Kessler, director of U.N. affairs for B’nai Brith International. "The composition of the bureau is problematic. The legacy of Durban is hanging above us. This session is going to decide potentially whether this is going to be another fiasco or whether this is going to help redirect the U.N. agenda on racism and move beyond the problematic legacy of Durban."

While Jewish observers widely agree that coordination among Jewish groups and outreach to sympathetic allies will be crucial, there is little evidence that such coordination is in the making. Groups already differ on how seriously to take next week's conference, with the Anti-Defamation League and the World Jewish Congress electing to lay low and watch while U.N. Watch, an American Jewish Committee-funded watchdog group, and the Wiesenthal Center will have delegates on hand for the Geneva meetings.

Groups also differ on strategy. Some are calling for reaching out to NGOs, which were responsible for some of the fiercest anti-Israel language to emerge from Durban. Hillel Neuer, of U.N. Watch, says the Europeans are the key actors given the absence of the United States. Anne Bayefsky, the director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and editor of Eye on the UN, says attention should be directed to Washington -- not Geneva.

"Congress holds the purse strings," Bayefsky said. "Congress decides whether or not its foreign operations budget is used for the funding of U.N. meetings, and which U.N. meetings. We can't do anything in Geneva."

Shimon Samuels, the Paris-based representative of the Wiesenthal Center who says he was thrown off an NGO steering committee related to the first Durban conference because he was Jewish, thinks little can be done to stop a recurrence of 2001.

"I don't think we can avert a recurrence," said Samuels, who intends to be in Geneva next week. "I think what we can do is be informed. We can this time reach out, because there are many, many frustrated NGOs who are brought in at their own cost to exotic places with money they don't have to be window dressing. They are cheerleaders. We did not take advantage of them last time."

Source: http://www.cjnews.com/TOPScnCJ.....;Itemid=86