Durban, U.N., Geneva: The Anti-Western Lab

The United Nations conference “Durban II” will take place in Geneva in April 2009. Meant to study contemporary forms of racism, it will pursue – on the quiet Geneva lakeshore – the work that was initiated at Durban I in South Africa in August 2001. And we know what happened there: Non governmental organizations transformed the meeting into a vast anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, and anti-U.S. forum.

By: Jacques Tarnero

The grand novelty was that this time “Death to the Jews” was shouted in the name of anti-racism and the emancipation of the human race! A few days after the end of this fine conference, the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York were attacked with airplanes hijacked by Al-Qaeda.

What is the possible scenario? What is at stake at the Geneva conference?

An obvious political offensive has been playing out for a year. The Human Rights Council (HRC) replaced the defunct Human Rights Commission, which – even in the eyes of the U.N. – had veered onto slippery ground too gravely. The Council is a new war machine with a strategy that has two major political goals. The first goal is to expel Israel from the U.N. The U.N. created Israel, so the U.N. has to get rid of it. This goal is to be met in various steps within certain timing. Israel is delegitimized by being presented as a state of apartheid. By designating Israel as structurally racist, the U.N. – as guardian of global moral standards – is forced to kick Israel out of the community of states and peoples. This sinister project goes hand in hand with another one, that of Iran’s Ahmadinejad, who wants to “wipe Israel off the map.” If, in the name of the U.N., Israel is denounced as a racist state, then the Iranian president is not wrong in wanting to eradicate this monster. The U.N. feeds into Ahmadinejad’s arguments, while he becomes the military wing of human justice.

The second goal of the Human Rights Council is to rewrite the constitutive principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which will celebrate its 60^th anniversary in Paris in December 2008. This actually means replacing universal rights with particular rights. When critique of religion – in particular critique of Islam, considered as islamophobia – is equated with a racist crime, it is a direct attack against freedom of conscience, a freedom so dearly won in the West. At the same time, others (such as Algeria) bring up another definition of antisemitism. Anti-Semitism (the hyphen is the key here) would not describe violence targeting Jews only, but all “Semites.” The hackneyed trick maintains political influence at a time when the U.N. might redefine concepts and norms.

Such is the stake of the upcoming political battle; one should not underestimate its importance because speeches always precede actions.

The Offensive against the West

What lies behind this virulent offensive is not limited to the common, repetitive and obsessed denunciation of Israel. We have all known for a long time that Zionism is the evil cause of global warming, earthquakes in China, the real estate crisis in Algeria, and the rising cost of Saudi oil. What is new is the “civilization-based” offensive against the West, which, in the name of Islamic principles, is more assertive and aims at replacing the 1948 Declaration, which is now considered a neo-colonial construct. From now on, the denunciation of the fate of Afghan women in the hands of the Talibans is interpreted as “defamation of the Muslim religion,” because the “stigmatization of the burqa” is an attack against religious freedom. This symbolic reversal casting the oppressor in the role of the oppressed offers a surprising opportunity to rewrite history. Thus, slave trade, for which Arab mobs were also responsible, as well as slavery practices in Sudan, the Emirates, and Arabia today, have been erased from the past and present. Only one monster endures: the Zionist entity also known as Israel!

All preparatory sessions of the conference held within the Human Rights Council confirm the complementarity of these goals. The balance of power within U.N. agencies is governed by internal mechanisms that give automatic majority to those who lead the offensive. The weight of countries from the Organization of the Islamic Conference along with their African and Venezuelan friends creates majorities that are not favorable to Israel or the West. So, what can be done? Canada has already decided not to participate in Durban 2 in Geneva. France is torn between its project of a union for the Mediterranean and its position of principle as stated by its president; it sounds like France will take part in the conference so that it can still leave it, even if it means slamming the door.

Oil prices, the situation in Lebanon, the Iraq war, and upcoming changes in the White House add many new actors who are calling their bluff. Geneva represents only the tip of the ideological iceberg.

An ideological trap

In May 2008, at the time of France’s reelection in the Human Rights Council, its Foreign Minister considered the HRC as “a unique institution for dialogue.” What is the political purpose of this soothing doubletalk? Which interests does it serve? The Algerian Minister of Veterans made a few antisemitic slip-ups vis-à-vis Nicolas Sarkozy just before his official visit. It is worth noting that Algeria is one of the spearheads in all anti-Israel attacks at the HRC, as if an escalation against Jews, Israel, or the West helped contain domestic discontent. The ill treatment given to the last Christians in Algeria serves as another example. In 2001, the former Algerian president, Ben Bella, seemed very active in coordinating anti-Israel NGOs in Durban. Today, the HRC has Libya as president, Iran as Vice-President, supported by countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference; it has modified neither its intention nor its strategy. Countries with the worst human rights record lead this agency, which is supposed to represent universal moral standards! The current agenda never lists items such as the fate of Tibet, dictatorship in Thailand, massacres in Darfur, xenophobic violence in South Africa, or religious minorities in the Arab world. Almost all preparatory meetings were dedicated to Palestine and to the horrors quite obviously committed by Israel. The irony is that the Libyan president opened the sessions with the words “In the name of Allah the merciful!” for which she received applause from Marxist Cuba, Maoist North Korea, and Chavist Venezuela. In Geneva, in 2009, God will recognize His own.