Durban again

It was not likely a coincidence that organizers scheduled the followup to the 2001 United Nations anti-racism conference  – known as Durban II – to begin on the eve of Yom Hashoah v’Hagvurah (Holocaust Remembrance Day).

The four-day event convenes April 20. in Geneva. Iran, the country whose theocratic rulers, are the world’s highest profile Holocaust deniers, is an executive member of the UN Human Rights Council, the body charged with implementing the declaration and the protocols from the 2001 conference in Durban, South Africa.

Sharing the planning and the organizational burdens of the conference with Iran – indeed one can say adding more human rights piquancy to the process – are the governments of Libya, which has been the chair of the conference’s preparatory committee, and Cuba, which is the committee’s official rapporteur.

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Navanethem Pillay, will preside over the conference. Pillay and Jessica Neuwirth, the director of the high commissioner’s New York, office have promised that “the Durban II conference will not be a hate-fest. Rather, it will be a celebration of tolerance.”

We doubt it. Pillay’s and Neuwirth’s optimism, though sincere, is simply not warranted.

Tolerance is simply not part of the outlooks of Iran, Libya and Cuba on the broad diversity of human life on this planet. In fact, the very idea is oxymoronic alongside the names of those countries.

A more likely outcome of the various discussions and debates in Geneva will be a roiling mess of cultivated calumny against Israel. The draft statements that form the basis of the agenda in Geneva have imported the entirety of the vituperative inventory of anti-Israel decisions that were adopted at Durban I. Those decisions explicitly condemn Israel as the brutish victimizer of the lowly Palestinians.

The charged atmosphere inside the conference room will likely spill onto the streets of Geneva. Pro-Israel advocates intend to be there to face down – as much as they can and as volubly as they can  – the anti-Israel hysterics and histrionics.

But as many observers have also pointed out, Israel may not be the only subject to be pilloried in Geneva.

Sparks and various electrical charges may sizzle in the thick air of the conference hall on account of an attempt by the Arab-Muslim bloc of nations to warn westerners away from criticism of religion (read: Islam). In light of the experience of the government of Denmark four years ago regarding cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, the members of the European Union will not willingly accede to the Arab-Muslim bloc’s preferences.

On the evening of April 20, the Jews of Geneva will host a special Holocaust remembrance service. When we, too, light our memorial candles that night, let us resolve to join them in our hearts to defend staunchly the truth of our history and the right of the sovereign Jewish state to have a place among all other nations of the earth.