Durban I, the so called U.N. World Conference Against Racism in 2001, was in reality a virulent display of anti-Semitism and an Arab and Muslim led forum to attack Israel and the West. So poisoned was the atmosphere at the conference the U.S. and shell-shocked Israel officials walked out in the first week. As Colin Powell, then U.S. Secretary of State, said "I know that you do not combat racism by suggesting that apartheid exists in Israel."
By all appearances the U.N. has learned nothing and is forging ahead with Durban II in 2009 reaffirming the original Durban Declaration. U.S. officials have said the document being prepared by the committee chaired by Libya, Iran and Cuba is worse than the one that emerged in 2001. Israel's "racial policies" and other anti-Semetic rants are once again a major theme. The draft also includes wording that in effect would criminalize "Islamophobia" or any criticism of Islam.
Holocaust survivors are warning that viscious anti-Jewish cartoons now being circulated in various parts of the world bring back haunting memories of what was going on in Germany in the 1930's. Yet the world remains strangely silent. How is it that once again the world is being duped into making a tiny minority of 13 million Jews a convenient scapegoat for so many of the world's ills?
As a Canadian I am proud our country was the first to pull out of this farcical conference and by doing so re-establishing ourselves as true leaders in the field of human rights and champions of tolerance.
Gerald Hall
Parksville, B.C.
