Israel and the U.N.’s racism summit

The U.S. boycotted the United Nations’ Durban II conference on racism, said The New York Times in an editorial, over concerns that, like the first Durban conference in 2001, it would turn into an “Israel-bashing spectacle.” Those fears were justified by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's predictably “ugly speech” calling Israel “a totally racist government.” Thankfully, France and other European nations walked out. (Watch news clip)

Why is the West letting the conference be “completely derailed,” said Antony Lerman in Britain’s The Guardian, by “a publicity-seeking, not especially powerful politician, desperately campaigning for re-election”? Racism is a real and often-deadly problem for millions worldwide, and refusing to argue against the anti-Israel zealots is a win for the zealots—and a big loss for victims of racism.

Despite reports to the contrary, “the first day of this U.N. conference was not an Israeli hatefest,”, said Parvez Sharma in The Huffington Post. Ahmadinejad made “provocative comments that were in poor taste,” but mostly the gathering was an “Iran hatefest." It would have been nice if there could have been some discussion of "Israel's continuing genocide of the Palestinian people."

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