Billy I Ahmed

THE World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) that began April 20 in Geneva was one of the largest international gatherings ever held to discuss wiping out racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerances.

After boycotting the first UN anti-racism conference in 2001, Israel has been agitating against the recall meeting in Geneva, determined to stamp out any criticism within UN circles of its endless repression of the Palestinian people.

Given the history of slavery, one might imagine the United States would play a lead role in planning this conference. But no, the United States and other Western and European diplomats walked out.

This was predictable and part of an orchestrated campaign against the event.

This conference is a follow-up to the historic World Conference Against Racism in Durban (WCAR), better known as Durban 1, owing to its location in Durban, South Africa in 2001, where a vast majority of the global community came together to make commitments to combat racism including its gender-based manifestations.

The Durban 1 conference dealt with the most basic of human rights in addition to the issues of slavery and the plight of the Palestinians. Then, the U.S. and Israel had walked out abhorring the language of racism.

Yet, the Israeli government had no qualms about working with the apartheid government of South Africa - without reservation, and while the world boycotted this racist regime, the Israeli government provided them with the technology to build the most atrocious weapon known to humankind - the nuclear bomb.

In the lead-up to the conference at Geneva, the UN officials adapted the draft conference resolution, removing all references to Israel and Zionism in a concerted attempt to persuade the US and other countries to participate.

The UN officials also banned all side events on Israel or Palestine from the official programme. At the same time, anti-racism non-governmental organisations (NGOs) appealed to US President Obama to endorse American participation suggesting that it would be an important public relations exercise for the first black US president.

This was all to no use. Obama declared on April 19 the draft declaration contained "objectionable provisions" that "could be used to express antagonism" toward Israel and announced the US boycott the event.

Following suit were Canada, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and the US Pacific allies, Australia and New Zealand, latter the Czech Republic.

On the opening day of the conference on April 20, the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who in the past raised doubts about Nazi Holocaust, denounced Israel at a United Nations Conference on racism as a "totally racist government" founded "on the pretext of Jewish suffering."

Ahmadinejad said Mr. Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General had asked him to make a "soft" speech at the conference. In reply Ahmadinejad said, "I told him if not exposing all this at a UN conference then where should issues like crimes in Gaza…and genocide of the Palestinians be raised?"

Turning to Israel, he started by asking why the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council have so much power over other nations. Although such powerful countries condemn racism in words, he said, by their deeds they "ridicule and violate all laws and humanitarian values."

"Following World War II," he continued, according to an official English-language text of his remarks, "they resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless, on the pretext of Jewish sufferings and the ambiguous and dubious question" of the Holocaust.

"They sent migrants from Europe, the United States and other parts of the world, to establish a racist government in occupied Palestine," he said, "and in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racists, in Palestine."

Ahmadinejad said Zionist supporters enjoy undue influence over Western governments, imposing "their domination to the extent that nothing can be done against their will," and he suggested the only solution is to defeat them.

"So long as Zionist domination continues, many countries, governments and nations will never be able to enjoy freedom, independence and security," he said. "As long as they are at the helm of power, justice will never prevail in the world and human dignity will continue to be offended and trampled on. It is time the ideal of Zionism, which is the model of racism, be broken."

The speech was subjected to constant jeering in the public gallery. Two pro-Zionist student protestors wearing clown wigs tried to drown out the speech, while 23 of the 27 European representatives walked out as soon as the Iranian president mentioned Israel.

In addition, a handful of pro-Israel demonstrators shouting "shame, shame" and "racist, racist" threw red clown noses at the podium and prevented Ahmadinejad from entering a room where he was to hold a news conference.

The uproar seemed to douse any hopes the gathering would prove more successful than the first UN anti-racism conference, in Durban, South Africa, in 2001. That meeting also became a forum for caustic condemnation of Israel.

President Barack Obama "disagrees vehemently" with Ahmadinejad, White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs told reporters.

Gibbs added that it justified the decision by the country's first African-American president to shun the conference.

Like Ahmadinejad, those political leaders from the Middle East, Africa and Asia who attended the UN conference used it as an opportunity to issue harmless anti-imperialist rhetoric in an attempt to deflect domestic political opposition from their own citizens.

On April 21 the delegates passed a 143-point resolution pledging to combat racism, discrimination against minorities, stereotyping people on religious grounds (a key demand of Islamic states) and reaffirming principles agreed in 2001.

It comes as no surprise the Obama administration boycotts Durban II with a few other "Western" countries in tow - at the behest of Israel.

What is offensive to those who appreciate equality and despise racism is the hypocrisy of a country whose Prime Minister declared openly: "(The Palestinians) are beasts walking on two legs". [Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, "Begin and the 'Beasts,"' (New Statesman, June 25,1982)]. Did any "Western" country protest or find this racist remark to be vile and shameful?

Was there any sense of disgust and shame by the "Western" countries when Ariel Sharon was acquitted of his crimes in 2003?

The survivors of the Sabra and Shatila massacre took their case to Belgium courts and the Belgian Supreme Court found in favour of the plaintiffs' motion. But in 2003, due to pressure from the United States, the next day it was announced that "the case against Ariel Sharon has been thrown out by Belgium's highest court"?

Did any "Western" suits walk out of the United Nations when John Bolton deliberately allowed Israel to continue bombing Lebanon with around 1,800 cluster bombs, containing over 1.2 million cluster bomblets covered Lebaon - as one IDF head describes it: "What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs".

There was no rebuke - only additional arms for Israel. Just as the Gaza massacre in December-January of this year brought extra arms from the United States while the world watched in horror - and continues to watch in disbelief as 1.5 million Gazans perish in an outdoor prison.

One has to wonder if these same heads of state felt any outrage when in violation of Article II of the UN Charter, Israel continuously threatens Iran and its 70 million inhabitants with war?

Yet, the same country that demanded America and other proxies to abandon the Conference Against Racism had a bunch of clowns representing it to interrupt a speech which was condemning its harsh behaviour.

Unfortunately for Israel, its over-reliance on force has dulled its wit.

In 2001, Yossi Beilin, the former Israeli Justice Minister, criticized the decision to leave Durban, saying Israel should have kept a delegation here to respond to the anti-Israel rhetoric.

This year, it would appear the "Western" countries response was the usually double standard - unable to respond to the accusations, the delegates left.

Durban II was momentous in that it showed that Israel can massacre at will and play the orphan card.

Any criticism of its actions is considered vile and shameful - while Israel's behaviour is encouraged with silence.

Abraham Lincoln described a hypocrite as a man who murdered both his parents... and pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan- this description aptly applied to Israel.

The humiliating and disgraceful hypocrisy of the West to accommodate Israel has no barrier- with no end in sight.

The Geneva meeting is meant to take stock of progress in fighting racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance since Durban.

Many Muslim nations want curbs to free speech to prevent insults to Islam they claim have multiplied since September 11. They cite the 2005 cartoons of Muhammad published by a Danish newspaper that sparked riots in the Muslim world.

The United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights Navi Pillay underlined recently the goals set then had not been achieved.

Navi Pillay, who is hosting the conference, expressed her disappointment at the withdrawal by the US and several of its allies from the conference. "I am shocked and deeply disappointed by the United States' decision not to attend," she added.

The appalling hypocrisy of the West to accommodate Israel has no boundaries - with no end in sight.

Ahmadinejad's speech may be unsavory but it is deplorable that many western and European nations adopt to mar a far-reaching conference on racism merely because of their abhorrence towards the Iranian President.

The writer is a tea planter,

columnist and researcher