Why Italy is Staying Away from Durban II
'Durban II' draft drops Israel criticism
March 17, 2009
Tovah Lazaroff, the Jerusalem Post
The UN on Tuesday cut out recently added references to Israel, defamation of religion and reparations for slavery from its draft declaration for next month's Conference Against Racism, dubbed Durban II.
The move comes after the United States and Italy announced their intention not to participate and the European Union threatened as a bloc to boycott the event.
The changes are seen as an attempt to entice the US and the EU to attend the conference scheduled for April 20 to 24 in Geneva.
"We believe this shortened text represents a solid and meaningful basis for negotiations," Doune Porter, spokeswoman for the UN in Geneva, said in a telephone interview. "It's a little too early to see what the reception will be, but this is a significant step forward that has support."
The new draft declaration, released on Tuesday in Geneva by Russian conference coordinator Yuri Boychenko, addressed concerns put forward by the EU and the US. It was shortened to 17 pages from the previous 45.
Talks will continue on the text. But Israel, which along with Canada, plans to boycott the event, said it did not believe that this was a positive step forward. Ambassador to the UN in Geneva Roni Leshno-Yaar said that in the last few months Iran had attempted to add in references to Israel. The new paragraphs, he said, went beyond what had been in the text that was adopted in the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, which took place in Durban, South Africa. The draft text for the follow up conference in Geneva states in its first paragraph that it affirms that document, Leshno-Yaar said. "We have come full loop and we are back to square one, where we reaffirm and single out Israel as a racist state," he said. "What we have gone through is that the Iranians and their friends have loaded the draft document with all kinds of paragraphs and then removed them, hoping we would forget that ancient thing, which is back in full force in the first paragraph," Leshno-Yaar said.
He added that there was still a month to go until the conference and there was plenty of time for additional anti-Israel language to be added to the draft.
We should have our eyes wide open and watch further," he said.
He said he was also concerned about attempts to delegitimize Israel by NGOs working on the sidelines of the conference. "It leaves me with a bad taste and a sense that we are going backwards," Leshno-Yaar said.
Mark Kornblau, spokesman for the US mission to the UN, said that new draft version still affirmed the outcome of the first UN conference on racism, in Durban.
The US and Israel walked out of that meeting to protest the outcome document. Then-US secretary of state Colin Powell denounced the conference text's "hateful language" that "singles out only one country in the world, Israel, for censure and abuse."
Why Italy is Staying Away from Durban II
March 13, 2009
Andrea Loquenzi for Hudson New York
The March 12th conference, organized by the Italian-Israeli friendship association at the Senate, represented the Italian way to say no to the “anti-Semite conference against democracy” that is Durban II. The Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini, was among the speakers and explained why our country is staying away from the preliminary works of the conference, while all the other European countries are participating.
Our foreign Minister has made clear that “Italy cannot negotiate what is not negotiable” and explained why. The first reason being anti-Semitism: “We believe in the dignity of the UN and we cannot contemplate a document headed ‘United Nations’ including a paragraph defining Israel as a threat to international peace.” The second main reason for the Italian forfàit is freedom of expression: we cannot support a document that states “the right to free expression cannot be extended to criticisms of any religious creed whatsoever” and therefore we are not going to collaborate at the preparation of this conference unless the a major shift in policy will take place, we are doing this “in the name of the credibility of the United Nations,” said Frattini.
Regarding the first reason, Frattini thinks that “like in 2001, also this time we see five paragraphs of the document dedicated to Israel. In this “abnormally long document” these five paragraphs are the only part of the document dedicated to a regional issue. “None of the other 245 paragraphs - Frattini went on saying - contain references to regional issues but only horizontal matters, as it should be”. The document speaks about Israel as an “actor of a racial discrimination policy”, a country “responsible for the apartheid, torture and criminal acts which constitute a threat to the international peace and security”. These expressions “go beyond the limit of legitimate criticism toward the State of Israel,” according to Frattini. They could easily become an incitement to racial hatred against the Jews.” This is really serious - said the Minister - because the UN is a member of the Quartet and should for this reason send reconciliatory messages in order to favor the peace process.”
Freedom of expression would be the second main reason why our country is pulling out from the preliminary work of the Durban II conference (which is due to take place in Geneva from April the 20th to the 24th). Frattini underlined that the paragraph dedicated to the “very-insidious-so-called religious defamation rule” was totally unacceptable. Various countries are trying to introduce “complementary standards” when it comes to every sort of criticism toward a whatsoever religious cult. “This is about the notorious incident of the Danish cartoons and would prevent freedom of expression…it is clear that Italy is opposing this,” explained Frattini.
So, Italy will not take part in the Durban II conference unless the conditions will change: Frattini hope for the “total cancellation of these paragraphs and the reduction of the entire document to just some chapters and few horizontal themes upon which we all agree on,” added Frattini who also said that “if today we bend over such an important issue as anti-Semitism or the freedom of expression, tomorrow we will have to bend over everything else and this is not acceptable”.
Our foreign Minister spoke for about fifteen minutes and was interrupted several times by the claps of his audience. The room was filled with some two hundred people, give or take. Among the other speakers, Professor Gerald Steinberg, the Executive Director of NGO Monitor, explained what he calls “the Durban strategy”: “The Durban speeches and resolutions largely ignored the issues for which this conference was ostensibly called - Steinberg said - focusing instead on branding Israeli anti-terror responses as ‘war crimes’ and ‘violations of international law.’ The Durban conference crystallized the strategy of delegitimizing Israel as "an apartheid regime through international isolation based on the South African model. This plan is driven by UN-based groups as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which exploit the funds, slogans and rhetoric of the human rights movement.”
“On this basis - Steinberg added - a series of political battles have been fought in the UN and in the media. These include the myth of the Jenin ‘massacre’, the separation barrier, the academic boycott, and, currently, the church-based anti-Israel divestment campaign.”
Also the notorious Italian journalist (and member of the Parliament for the PDL) Fiamma Nirenstein attended the conference and her words were the most applauded. She attended the first Durban conference and that she said that she remembers exactly how the people there, were manifesting against Israel just for the sake of doing it and that there was no rational criticism whatsoever. All she saw was people chanting against the Jewish State and gathering above Osama Bin Laden’s signs.
“During that conference I’ve even heard Robert Mugabe and Fidel Castro talking about human rights,” said the Honorable Nirenstein, people laughed. “I heard people in Europe -after the first Durban conference - chanting ‘Hamas, Hamas the Jews to gas’. “I’m still not surprised though - said the MP - because we also heard people clapping hands while homosexuals were being hanged in Iran and women stoned to death”. “We must be careful cause anti-Semitism might have been more effective in the past but it was never such a broadly spread ideology as it is today…this is frightening.” “I also think that Italy has done an historical thing by not joining the preliminary works of this conference - continued Fiamma Nirenstein - but be careful! The situation here is messy and we must do something about it, if we don’t do anything we’ll soon face the consequences, we can’t let these people [the organizers of the Durban conference] switch from political dialogue to the incitement to genocide! It already happened in the past and that is what we talk about when we say never again.”