Durban II and Obama’s Foreign Policy Mantra
The White House takes advice from advocates of throwing Israel under the bus, a transcript of a conference call exclusively obtained by PJM reveals. Part of PJM and PJTV's continuing coverage of Durban II.
The Obama administration promised transparency. It seems only fitting, therefore, to release a transcript (produced unofficially) of a conference call between Karen Stewart — acting assistant secretary for democracy, human rights, and labor — and a group of highly select organizations, which took place on February 27, 2009. On the phone line with this top State Department official was a small cabal of human rights organizations, UN-associated organizations, and an Arab NGO. At stake — U.S. participation in April’s UN’s Durban II “anti-racism” conference and the UN Human Rights Council. The conversation reveals which groups the administration is trying to please and what would please them. It also points to the devastating impact that can be expected from the Obama foreign policy mantra of “engagement.” Now on the chopping block — Israel, equality rights, and American values.
The Background of Durban II
Durban I is the infamous racist anti-racism conference that took place in South Africa and ended three days before 9/11. Durban II is the UN’s effort to launch another round of anti-Semitism via its unique global megaphone. It is also the vehicle for Islamic states to change permanently the world of human rights: the point is to move from protecting rights and freedoms to curtailing them in the name of so-called religious sensitivities.
At the time of the conference call everyone knew that the draft declaration on the table (scheduled to be adopted at the conference itself) called Jewish self-determination racist, Israel an apartheid state, questioned the veracity of the Holocaust, introduced limits on free speech, and manufactured worldwide Muslim victims of Western racism (known as “Islamophobia.”)
The chair of the drafting committee for Durban II is Libya; Iran is a vice-chair and Cuba is the rapporteur.
Even without the new abominations, the purpose of Durban II is to reaffirm and to implement the Durban I Declaration. But that declaration says Israelis are racists — the only racist country that UN “human rights” authorities could identify. So fixing Durban II is not possible. Protecting human rights would require burying Durban I, not reaffirming and implementing it.
The Background of the UN Human Rights Council
The Human Rights Council is the UN’s lead human rights agency. It was created after the previous incarnation, the ignominious Human Rights Commission, was disbanded in 2006. The UN creators of the Human Rights Council rejected an American idea of instituting a membership condition about actually protecting human rights. So the Bush administration saw no reason to join or to pay for it.
At the time of this conference call everyone knew that the Human Rights Council has proved to be more extreme than its predecessor. It has reduced the influence of democracies and shifted the balance of power to the Islamic bloc. As a consequence, it has had 10 regular sessions on human rights all over the world and five special sessions to condemn Israel alone. It has adopted more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than all of the other 191 UN states combined. It has one standing agenda item on alleged Israeli violations and one standing item on general human rights issues for everybody else. It has terminated human rights investigations, left over from the Human Rights Commission, on some of the worst places on the planet: Belarus, Cuba, Iran, and Uzbekistan. It trashed its only resolution on freedom of expression, forcing every Western state to withdraw support from this democratic lifeline.
Durban II and the Human Rights Council are intertwined. The council is the preparatory committee for Durban II and has pushed it from the beginning. Elections for membership on the council take place in May of this year, only a few weeks after Durban II ends. Refusing to legitimize Durban II may hurt a state’s chances of election to the council. Furthermore, if the only foreign policy mantra the Obama administration can think of is “engagement,” there doesn’t appear to be anything that ought to prevent the U.S. from jumping on board everything in sight — Durban II and the Council — substance be damned. However, the UN is required to undertake a five-year review of Council operations in 2011. By staying out until that time, the United States would be in a position to leverage its potential membership — and the instant credibility of the participation of the world’s greatest democracy — in exchange for reform. U.S. membership should be earned.
The Jewish Problem
The 2001 Durban I was divided into an NGO Forum and a governmental conference. The NGOs adopted a declaration, which said Zionism is racism and got worse from there. An NGO meeting on anti-Semitism that had been planned for months was disrupted and cut short by a screaming mob. The international NGOs, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now called Human Rights First), decided not to vote against the NGO declaration. They also decided not to vote when a suggestion by Jewish groups concerning anti-Semitism was deleted from that same declaration. The world’s leading international NGOs thought there was a midway point between espousing anti-Semitism and denouncing it.
Overall, the hundreds of participating NGOs either agreed outright with the anti-Semitism or believed that the discrimination and demonization of the Jewish state was the price to be paid for getting their own equality issues on the agenda. They never understood that equality rights for some cannot be built on the inequality of others, that anti-Semitism poisons the human rights wellspring, and that intolerance that begins with Jews does not end with Jews.
Although UN officials — most notably the current High Commissioner for Human Rights — claim that only the NGO Forum was problematic, this is not true. Attending both, I watched almost every mention of anti-Semitism deleted from the government draft declaration and witnessed the objectionable bargain that was ultimately reached. After the United States and Israel walked out of Durban I in disgust, the European Union — led by the French — cut a deal. The result allowed a few mentions of anti-Semitism and acknowledgment of the Holocaust, in exchange for casting Israel as racist. Canada joined consensus on most of the document, but made a strong reservation to the Israel-related sections. However, every copy of the Durban Declaration produced by the UN since that time omits the Canadian reservation and claims all of Durban was adopted by consensus.
After Durban, the UN engaged in a major cover-up. For more than seven years, they made the Durban Declaration the centerpiece of the UN’s anti-racism movement and spawned multiple Durban “follow-up” activities. They blamed NGOs for all that had gone wrong. They claimed the government conference was a model of civility and the Durban Declaration a human rights godsend.
Today
The same forces present at Durban I are still operating. The Islamic bloc and Arab interests intend to use the global conference as a means to demonize and destroy their enemy on the political battlefield. Human rights organizations are prepared to throw Jews overboard while protecting other people’s human rights. The European Union is looking for a way to be the kingpin on the global stage. The new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, is claiming Durban I got a bad rap and recently made the ugly suggestion of a Jewish conspiracy lurking behind criticism of Durban II.
The behavior of Pillay tells us a lot about the nature of the UN machine and how it pushes anti-Semitism as human rights. Pillay has a vested interest in ensuring the “success” of Durban II. She is the secretary-general of the conference. She is also a native of Durban, South Africa, and when she was appointed last July said the mayor asked her to “rescue” the city’s good name. Rather than admitting the past and seeking to avoid its repetition, Pillay has taken on the job of revisionism with a vengeance:
I am fully aware that the legacy of the 2001 Durban Conference has been tainted by the anti-Semitic behavior of some NGOs at the sidelines of that conference. … [T]he Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, the document that emerged from the conference in 2001, transcended divisive and intolerant approaches.
She has also deliberately sought to repeat exactly what went wrong. Asked by the Durban II drafting committee to recommend suggestions for inclusion in the final declaration, she contributed: “We must reaffirm the DDPA [Durban Declaration and Programme of Action] without reservation.”
Pillay finds fault not with Durban I and its Declaration and Durban II and its draft declaration — but with the critics. More specifically, Jewish critics. On February 20, 2009, she said:
[T]he review conference has also been the target of a disparaging media and lobbying campaign on the part of those who fear a repetition of anti-Semitic outbursts. This is unwarranted. … Narrow, parochial interests and reflexive partisanship must be cast aside in the interest of a greater common good.
Those narrow-minded Jews uninterested in the common good — who have actually been at the forefront of human rights movements the world over and have six million good reasons for being concerned about demonization — might be surprised to learn of how the UN’s leading spokesperson for human rights ended this speech. Pillay said: “Let me reiterate that — sustained by the United Nations principles of impartiality, independence, and integrity –I regard my office as a springboard for the betterment and welfare of all and a place where all are given a fair audience.” Well, not quite all.
So where does all this leave President Obama and the United States? Taking advice from those who, like the UN’s top human rights officer, advocate throwing Israel and Jews who support Israel under the bus for the sake of the greater good. In some cases, exactly the same organizations that distinguished themselves at Durban I by refusing to vote against “Zionism is racism.”
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Anne Bayefsky is a Senior Fellow of the Hudson Institute, Director of the Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust at Touro College, and the Editor of www.EYEontheUN.org. She is the author or editor of 12 books and numerous articles in the field of human rights, and a frequent contributor to newspapers in the U.S., Europe, Israel and Canada.
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19 Comments
1. eon:Essentially, the so-called “human rights” organizations are telling the U.S. that it has to accept the very same statements which caused it to walk out of the first conference seven and a half years ago. In exchange or which, they will… remain conspicuously silent on the real human rights abuses of several of the states sitting on the governmental side of the panel, continue to abuse and excoriate Israel for existing, and oh yes, make it an international crime against multiculturalism and political correctness to criticise any Islamic state, in any way, ever.
This goes beyond “P.C. run amok”. This is a crime against humanity in the making.
The only thing more bizarre than calling Durban II a “human rights” conference is the idea that the Obama administration is actually considering participation. Quite aside from the principles involved, under the Constitution it is illegal for the U.S. government to openly or tacitly support groups which engage in religious discrimination (1st Amendment). The Durban II position paper does precisely that.
If the Obama Administration were to support this document, it would (under their own “understanding” of international law) be compelled to enforce its provisions within the United States, and against American citizens. Which would, strictly speaking, violate the 1st, 5th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. This would in fact be an impeachable offense for the President and/or any official attempting to enforce said provisions.
I could figure that out with a couple of minutes’ reference to a copy of the Constitution in an almanac. It amazes me that these supposed “experts” from the State Department, etc., seem incapable of grasping the concept.
You do realize that, in previous administrations, of either party, such demonstrable incompetence and incapacity to properly fulfill the duties and functions of their posts would have been grounds for immediate firing for cause?
They still should be. The fact that they aren’t tells us all we need to know about the “competence” of our new “ruling class”. And how little they care about our opinion of same.
clear ether
eon
Mar 13, 2009 - 3:43 am 2. Noah Guttman:Does this really shock anyone?
If Democracy is tyranny of the masses
And most nation states in the world are brutal dictatorships
And the U.N. is a democracy of massed nation states.
Then the U.N. is a tyranny of brutal dictatorships
So what else could we expect from its NGOs?
Mar 13, 2009 - 5:09 am 3. Ken Besig:Of course it is much too early to say with certainty just where these events are leading us, but as more time passes I think it will become crystal clear that most of the International Community, including a large portion of the new American government and Obama himself, is adopting an eliminationist attitude towards Israel.
Mar 13, 2009 - 6:04 am 4. jerryofva:Not too long ago, that International Community believed that they could impose sanctions, express exaggerated and entirely unjust condemnations, organize conferences and demonstrations, and use the International Court of Justice to force Israel to accept the fact that she was an international criminal and thus reform herself. This of course would include bowing to every Arab and Palestinian demand no matter how ridiculous or dangerous to Israel, up to and including flooding Israel with millions of so called Palestinian refugees and quickly bringing an end to the Jewish State. Thus far Israel has for some strange reason refused this fair offer to commit national suicide and continues to demand that she be allowed to exist in peace and security like every other nation in the world.
Well, the UN and the International Community have just about had enough of Israeli intransigence and have just about concluded that the world would be better off without the Jewish State. The demonstrators against Israel now publicly call for the destruction of Israel as well as the genocide of the Jewish People, and very few world leaders protest these utterly abominable expressions of hatred towards Jews.
Indeed, Barack Obama with the help of his Jewish Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, actually nominated a fellow named Charles Freeman, an unabashed anti Semite in the financial pocket of the Saudi Arabians, to an important security post knowing full well the animosity of Freeman towards Israel and the Jews. I could name others just as antagonistic towards Israel, like Samantha Powers, that Obama has come to rely on for his Israel policies.
This is the real and growing problem, not Durban, the Europeans, or even the UN, the problem now is that there is an American President, Barack Obama, who believes that he must diminish Jewish and Israeli influence over American government Middle East policy, in the sense that doing away with Israel would solve a pretty good portion of the world’s problems.
Ken:
There is an upside to the abandonment of Israel. It is one of those fortunate unintended consequences. When the Israelis realize that the world wants their destruction they will be free to deal with their adversaries. I expect that Israel will launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran if they continue on their path to nuclear capability. The Israelis know that Europe will shout loudly and do nothing; Putin’s Russia will jump for joy at higher oil prices; the Sunnis will smile as their Shia adversary disappears; and China will send political prisoners to clean up the place and then grab the oil. Meanwhile Hezbollah will suddenly become more internally focused and as usual the Palestinians will be left holding the bag. Only the Obama administration will want to take some meaningless action against Israel but will be thoroughly ignored.
I don’t know where to place Rahm. Is he a Mossad agent in place or is America’s Lazar Kaganovich, Stalin’s Jewish buddy, who survived until shortly before the Soviet Union collapsed.
Mar 13, 2009 - 7:59 am 5. Middleman:Didn’t the Obama Adminstration annouce they are boycotting the Conference on the 27th? So basically, they heard out the UN and Human Rights Watch, and turned around and said ‘No Thank You’.
What’s the issue?
Mar 13, 2009 - 9:57 am 6. wildman:Please take the UN and all its members and decamp from the USA. Go anywhere you choose but begone from us.
Mar 13, 2009 - 10:04 am 7. Citizen70:It’s an outrage to single out one country, especially when countries other than Israel are guilty of severe human rights violations. Does Durban address the violation of women’s (we’re human too) rights in the Arab nations?
Mar 13, 2009 - 11:11 am 8. Oscar the Grump:This brings to mind Israel’s Samson Doctrine. When the world has turned on Israel and there is no future, Israel will make sure its enemies will never have a future. It will lay waste all her enemies.
Mar 13, 2009 - 1:47 pm 9. steel pipe:Durban I is the infamous racist anti-racism conference that took place in South Africa and ended three days before 9/11. good
Mar 14, 2009 - 12:17 am 10. brian mills:israeli s still haven t been able to understand that the world has changed and the special position that allows them to possess nuclear weapons and indulge in cruel, reprisal raids is over. they will have to obey international law like any other country. cry, cry, cry you bastards you ve had your way too long.
Mar 14, 2009 - 11:08 am 11. yesjb:Ah Brian, so cerebral…
Mar 14, 2009 - 2:25 pm 12. Lynn B.:Americans still havent been able to understand that the world has changed and the special position that allows them to possess nuclear weapons and indulge in cruel, invasions is over. they will have to obey international law like any other country. cry, cry, cry you bastards you’ve had your way too long.
The OIC has put forth a resolution to criminalize the blasphemy of religions (specifically Islam). Along with the racism inherent in this conference is the intent to silence human rights advocates in the Muslim countries and the Western democracies. Freedom of Speech would be quashed and references to Islam and terrorism would be a prosecutable offense. It would define Islam as the superior religion and individual rights as non-existent. I’m not buying into that part of the Conference statement either.
Mar 14, 2009 - 3:11 pm 13. Linda Mae:Watch Fitna. Review the UN reports from Gaza – Hamas guilty of war crimes because they used civilians and civilian areas to hide and fire against the Israelis. That Hamas store supplies earmarked for certain neighborhoods in Gaza – the inhabitants went without. That Hamas was caught with suitcases of money at the border – leaving Gaza. That Hamas lied about the number of civilians killed. That no one took time to investigate the firing of rockets into Israel – into areas that are civilian. One sided.?
Mar 14, 2009 - 9:03 pm 14. buck smith:I am someone who was radicalized, I guess you coul say, by what I learned in the aftermath of 9-11. My view of the UN was really set when I learned that at the Durban COnference they were voting on a resoluion to declare the North American slave, which ended 90 years before the UN was founded, a crime against humanity. And a bunch of the North African countries voting on it practice slave trade today. The UN is a poseur ogranization,
Mar 15, 2009 - 6:54 am 15. Michael Lonie:#10
Israel makes reprisal raids because Israel’s enemies atack her. If there were no attacks the surrounding countries would have nothing to fear from Israel. This is shown clearly by Egypt and Jordan, which need have no fear of Israel attacks because they do not allow or mount attacks on Israel from their soil. You seem to have the asinine notion that Israel’s enemies have the right to attack Israel and kill Israelis but the latter have no right to defend themselves. Nope, that is not true and is actually 180 degrees away from what international law and the UN Charter actually say. For what that is worth.
If the US abandons Israel and worse, helps to destroy that country, we will not reap any friendship and respect from the Muslims for it. We will only earn their justified contempt for stabbing a friend in the back. We did that once already under the command of the Democrats, with South Vietnam. When are liberals and “realists” going to learn that if you continually screw your allies over, pretty soon you’ll have no allies?
Mar 15, 2009 - 10:04 pm 16. Judy, NYC:the u.n. is comprised of members whose dictatorial regimes withhold water, food, protection from any group of their own citizens they deem unworthy. these are dumb, viscious brutal shrunken brained tribal “lords”, who still make their money from bribery and slave trade.
it is putrid to have that building and those people here in the united states. get thehell out of here and demolish the place that houses them, so we never have to think of them again.
Mar 16, 2009 - 6:27 pm 17. Abdullah:Anti-Semitism is inherent in Islam, so it is not surprising that all 57 Moslem countries are trying to demonize Israel wherever they can, especially at the United Nations where they have such influence. The Koran and the Hadith (sayings of Muhammad) are full of Jew-hatred. Perhaps the most infamous of the anti-Semitic passages from the Islamic sacred books is this:
Mar 20, 2009 - 4:05 pm 18. William J. Lange:– Allah’s Apostle said, “You (i.e. Muslims) will fight with the Jews till some of them will hide behind stones. The stones will (betray them) saying, ‘O ‘Abdullah (i.e. slave of Allah)! There is a Jew hiding behind me; so kill him.’ ”
This genocidally anti-Semitic passage is also part of the Hamas Charter. Because Muhammad is considered to have said it, Moslems are required to believe and to follow it.
Its all going according to the plan of God, We are in the end times for Israels Messiah to return. The times of the gentiles is about to come to an end. God loves Israel as do biblical Christians. False Christiandom and the evils of the world are being brought to a head where the God of the bible will have His Way and Day. America is doomed if and when she aborts Israel.
Mar 21, 2009 - 2:56 am 19. Sonia, SA:#15 Well said Michael. Indeed Muslims have nothing but contempt for anybody but a Muslim, whether you side with them or not. The world and its leaders will learn the hard way that the Muslim mind is truly not understood by the West, for if it was, terrorism and anti-semitism would have been something of the past long ago. If world leaders and the United Nations specifically, went to the trouble of doing proper research into statements coming from Hamas and the other Islamic organisations they would recognise the lies and deception that they so readily swallow. What fools, what absolute fools these people are!
Mar 21, 2009 - 6:43 amDurban I was a disgrace to South Africa, Durban II will be worse because world leaders are in the pockets of Islam. The world cannot expect to hear anything positive from Durban II, But God is not asleep or caught off guard. He will have the last say. He is the God of Israel and His justice will in the end prevail.