Khaled Abu Toameh - The UN's Durban III Conference: An Arab View

Khaled Abu Toameh
Hudson New York
13 September '11

http://www.hudson-ny.org/2415/un-durban-conference

Arab dictatorships and Muslim fundamentalists will get a morale boost next week when the United Nations hosts its "Anti-Racism" Durban III conference in New York. But it is not only Israelis and Jews who eventually pay the price for this type of incitement -- it is also the few remaining moderate Arabs and Muslims.

As in the past, the conference will serve as platform for all those who hate Israel and Jews and seek to destroy the Jewish state. The UN conference's anti-Israel and anti-Semitic messages and rhetoric will once again be used by the enemies of peace and compromise in the Middle East to justify their violence against Israel and Jews.

The mob that attacked the Israeli embassy in Cairo last weekend will undoubtedly use the messages coming out of the conference to justify their crime.

Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Hamas and Hizbullah proxies will say that the conference proves that their right when they for the elimination of Israel. By hosting speakers like Ahmadinejad, the UN is helping spread his message of hatred and anti-Semitism. Ahmadinejad and his allies are always happy to exploit such gatherings to promote their denial of the Holocaust and desire to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.

This year's UN conference is being held at a time when anti-Israel sentiments, especially throughout the Arab and Islamic world, are on the rise. It also coincides with a "diplomatic intifada" that the Palestinian Authority is waging against Israel in the international arena.



This is an "intifada" that is primarily designed to isolate Israel in the international arena by depicting the Jewish state as a source of instability because of its refusal to comply with the Palestinian Authority's demand for a full withdrawal from all the 1967 territories. The Palestinian Authority is hoping that membership in the UN would give its representatives access to many UN organizations, where they say they want to prosecute Israelis as war criminals and have Israel expelled from these bodies.

The "Durban III" conference is being held almost on the same day the Palestinian Authority is planning to ask the UN for recognition of a Palestinian state –- a move that is likely to end the peace process and plunge the region into a dangerous period of uncertainty and tensions. In the region, there is already much talk of a possible violent confrontation between Palestinians and Israelis as a result of the UN statehood bid.

The anti-Israel messages emerging from the conference will only increase tensions and accelerate the eruption of another "cycle of violence." The conference is taking place at a time when Hamas and Hizbullah have tens of thousands of missiles directed toward Israel and ready to be used at any time. Those who are chanting "Death to Israel" on the streets of Cairo and Amman will be happy to see that their messages are being echoed in the corridors of the UN next week.

Syrian dictator Bashar Assad will also benefit from the "Durban III" conference as it will distract attention from the daily massacres that his security forces are perpetrating against the Syrian people.

It would have been better if this year's UN conference had been dedicated to discussing human rights conditions in Syria and the rest of the Arab world. But by singling out Israel, the UN conference is playing into the hands of the radicals and dictators in the region by providing then with the legitimacy they need to pursue their dream of destroying the Jewish state.

What the Middle East needs is conferences that promote peace and coexistence, not hatred and violence.

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