May 29th, 2008 by NGO Monitor Staff | Category: Durban Conference, UN, Durban Review Conference

Durban Review Summary

May 29, 2008

Israel-bashing agenda emerges as substantive discussion of Durban II gets underway in the first meeting of the Intergovernmental Working Group

May 29, Eye on the UN Press Release

This Eye on the UN press release reports on a UN-sponsored document (known as a “Working Group non-paper”), which was released in Geneva during this week’s Preparatory Committee meetings. The “non-paper” is a 62-page document, which includes situation reports on racism for various UN member-states, discussions and submissions made during PrepComs, CERD submissions on existing forms of racism and discrimination, and a report by the UN special rapporteur on racism.

Under the subject “Victims of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance”, the “victims identified” by an intergovernmental working group include “the Palestinian people under foreign occupation.” The paper suggests that the “vulnerability” of Palestinians “is connected to racial or ethnic distinction from the occupying power.” Eye on the UN maintains that this paper reflects the “Zionism in racism” canard that was first issued in the 1975 General Assembly resolution. Eye on the UN also expresses concern over the Organization of Islamic Conference’s (and African regional group-now controlled by Egypt), disproportionate representation at Durban II during which “Egypt spoke more than four times as often as any other state.” It is also noteworthy that the only peoples mentioned under the “Foreign Occupation” section are Palestinians.

On the issue of Anti-Semitism, the “non-paper” reports that “Anti-Semitism - the oldest historical form of religious discrimination and defamation - not only remains deeply pervasive in its traditional haunts, notably in what has become the new Europe, but is spreading insidiously to other regions of the world both through declarations by politicians and through publications that perpetuate old stereotypes. The denial or questioning of the extermination of Jews in Europe, or the Holocaust, during the Second World War is the latest manifestation of this deep-seated anti-Semitism. In the course of his visits and investigations, the Special Rapporteur came across serious, silent but deep-seated anti-Semitism, the expression of which is veiled and repressed by image or power-related considerations and strategies.”