Bayefsky - Durban III - back again at the UN General Assembly

Anne Bayefsky
Eye on the UN
November 21, 2011
info@eyeontheun.org
For Immediate Release

In yet another effort to demonize Israel on the political battlefield, the UN General Assembly—which can bear a striking resemblance to the game of Whac-A-Mole—will adopt a new resolution this week to promote the Durban “anti-racism” declaration.

Back in September the UN sponsored “Durban III,” an event intended by Islamic states and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay to breathe new life into the ten-year-old anti-Israel vendetta which began in South Africa in 2001. Despite the unprecedented boycott by all Western veto-holding members of the Security Council – the US, Britain and France – Durban and its insidious message have popped up a mere two months later.

The regenerative nature of UN armaments, in the form of cyclical resolutions and “follow-up” mechanisms, makes them not merely annoying but dangerous. Battles that are won must be fought again and again.This is particularly true of the libelous 1975 UN resolution equating Zionism with racism, which was revitalized in the 2001 Durban Declaration and Program of Action (DDPA), accusing only one state among all UN members of racism – Israel – and casting Palestinians as the victims of Israeli bigotry.

By all accounts – except the one emanating from the UN press office – Durban III failed to deliver the credibility boost that its fans were craving. In a strong rejection of the Durban III political program, 14 nations, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, the United Kingdom, the United States and, of course, Israel all boycotted. A simultaneous counter-conference held directly across the street from the UN, involving Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel and a bipartisan group of Jewish and non-Jewish luminaries, mounted a resounding historic challenge to the UN campaign.

The UN response, however, has been to rewrite history. On September 22, 2011, at the opening ceremonies of Durban III, South African President Jacob Zuma fictionalized the original conference, saying “in Durban the world spoke with one voice” – notwithstanding the very public departure of the United States and Israel. A few hours later, the General Assembly adopted a “political declaration,” “reaffirming” the DDPA and calling the declaration “United against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.” Today, the UN website says of Durban III that “world leaders adopted by consensus a political declaration,” paying no notice to the fact that the world’s leading democracies had already voted with their feet.

(Video) Douglas Murray on the Durban Conference

HenryJacksonSoc
Sep 30, 2011

While the UN Durban III Conference was as expected, a very sad and pathetic spectacle, it did have a silver lining. It brought Douglas Murray to NYC, to speak at the counter-conference, hosted by The Hudson Institute and Touro College, titled "The Perils of Global Intolerance: The United Nations and Durban III". Douglas Murray, is as sharp as they come, incisive, witty, and very to the point. Enjoy!

Douglas Murray on the Durban Conference (Part One)


Douglas Murray on the Durban Conference (Part Two)


Douglas Murray is a British writer and commentator who was the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion from 2007 until 2011 and is currently an associate director of the Henry Jackson Society. Murray appears regularly in the British broadcast media, commentating on issues from a conservative standpoint, and he is often critical of Islamic fundamentalism. He writes for a number of publications including Standpoint and The Spectator. In 2009, he was awarded the Charles Douglas-Home memorial prize for journalism. Murray has authored a number of books, including in 2005 Neoconservatism: Why We Need it. (Wikipedia)

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Bayefsky - Meet the UN's anti-Israel 'anti-discrimination' czar, Navi Pillay

Anne Bayefsky
info@eyeontheun.org
August 10, 2011

For Immediate Release:

This article by Anne Bayefsky appears on NY Daily News.

The UN's top human rights official, Navi Pillay, attempted on Monday to block further defections from the UN's racist "anti-racism" bash scheduled for New York City on Sept. 22. The United States, Canada, Israel, the Czech Republic, Italy and the Netherlands have already announced a boycott of "Durban III," a UN event designed to "commemorate" the 10th anniversary of the UN anti-Semitic hatefest held in Durban, South Africa, in September 2001. Pillay said she was "disappointed" with these pullouts, labeling them a "political distraction."

The barb was no accident for a UN high commissioner for human rights who has been distracted by her anti-Israel and anti-American agenda since taking office in 2008. Pillay is perhaps best known for her unremitting defense of the notorious Goldstone report and for having questioned the legality of the killing of Osama Bin Laden.

For Pillay, championing the Durban conference and its manifesto, the Durban Declaration, is a personal crusade. A native of Durban herself, shortly after her appointment she explained to a Geneva audience that the city's mayor asked her to "rescue the name of Durban," given its unflattering association with anti-Semitism. In response, she helped launch both Durban II in Geneva in 2009 and Durban III.

Unfortunately, her efforts to legitimize the Durban Declaration have little to do with the most basic of human rights: equality. The Durban Declaration charges only one country with racism among all 192 UN states - Israel. It calls Palestinians "victims" of Israeli racism, a 21st century reincarnation of the Zionism-is-racism libel. When Durban II ended with an "outcome document" that reaffirmed the Durban Declaration, Pillay gloated in a news conference on April 24, 2009, that Palestine is indeed "mentioned in the Durban Declaration and the word 'reaffirm' carries those paragraphs into this document."

While Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the "anti-racism" crowd at Durban II, Pillay remained glued to her seat. UN videotape shows her simply watching democratic states walk out in disgust, although she and her secretariat colleagues had a copy of his Holocaust-denying speech in advance. Despite her later scramble, when under pressure, to distance herself from his comments, she issued a flowery thank-you to the Organization of the Islamic Conference for their role in Durban II - which included warm applause for Ahmadinejad.

Pillay's enthusiasm for the Durban "anti-racism" agenda goes hand in hand with her single-minded pursuit of the demonization of Israel throughout her tenure. In January 2009, Pillay called for the creation of what became the Goldstone inquiry. In August 2009, she issued a report that lauded Hamas for having "made public statements that it is committed to respect international human rights and humanitarian law." After Goldstone claimed that Israel had intentionally targeted civilians, Pillay said on Sept. 30, 2009, "I lend my full support to Justice Goldstone's report and its recommendations." Goldstone has since recanted the veracity of his slur; Pillay has not.

In July 2010, she made a rare appearance before the Security Council on "situations where the protection of civilians has been and remains of great concern" around the world - and made only two pleas to the council, both about Israel. Referring to Gaza, she said: "I urge the council . . . to ensure the lifting in full of the blockade" - which would stymie Israel's ability to limit the flow of arms to Hamas. And she made this plea: "I urge the Security Council to support the recommendations of the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict" - that is, the Goldstone report.

After a visit this past February to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, she said this at her final Jerusalem news conference: "The clearest manifestation of institutional discrimination is the fact that during all my meetings with government and state officials, I do not believe I met a single Palestinian citizen of Israel." She could have easily determined that Israeli Arabs are members of Israel's parliament, in the diplomatic corps and on the Supreme Court. The discrimination that was apparently unclear to Pillay was the institutional charter of the Hamas government in Gaza, which calls for the annihilation of the Jewish citizens of Israel, and the Palestinian Authority's refusal to recognize the right of a Jewish state to exist at all.

The antagonism between Pillay's political priorities and the interests of Americans was most evident in her reaction to the death of Bin Laden. On May 3, Pillay expressed concern about his treatment. She demanded to know "the precise facts surrounding his killing" for the purpose of determining its legality. According to Pillay, "counterterrorism activity . . . in compliance with international law" means "you're not allowed . . . to commit extrajudicial killings." And this requirement would be satisfied only if the Americans had stuck by what she claimed was their "stated . . . intention . . . to arrest Bin Laden if they could."

Her concern for Bin Laden was remarkable both for its flagrant contradiction with the laws of war justifying lethal force in his case, and for being three times as fast as her expressions of concern in March about the victims of lethal terror in Syria.

It is little wonder, therefore, that Pillay should be a fan of Durban III. On Monday, she confirmed that she will be coming to New York to participate in Durban III, which she described as an "important event . . . to combat discrimination." Discrimination defined by the sponsors of discrimination itself.

For more United Nations coverage see www.EYEontheUN.org.


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Glick - Unmasking the ‘international community’

Caroline B. Glick
jewishworldreview.com
01 July '11
H/T Ruth King

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0711/glick070111.php3

Given the utter depravity of the UN and the international system it oversees, what can explain the international Left's kneejerk obeisance to it?

For many years, the Left in Israel and throughout the world has upheld the so-called “international community” as the arbiter of all things. From Israel’s right to exist to climate change, from American world leadership to genetically modified crops, the Left has maintained that the “international community,” is the only body qualified to judge the truth, lawfulness, goodness and justice of all things.

Most of those who uphold this view see the United Nations as the embodiment of the “international community.” US President Barack Obama has repeatedly made clear that his chief litmus test for the viability or desirability of a foreign policy is the support in garners in UN institutions.

Obama is so averse to acting against the will of the UN that he is trying to strong arm Israel into making suicidal concessions to the Hamas-dominated Palestinian Authority. Obama claims that if Israel agrees to accept indefensible borders, then he will be able to convince the Palestinians not to ask the UN to endorse Palestinian sovereignty in September. Since the success of the Palestinian initiative is entirely dependent on the US Security Council veto, by acting as he is, Obama is showing that he prefers sacrificing Israel’s future viability as a nation state to standing up to the “will of the international community” as embodied by the UN.

Furthermore, in a bid to maintain faith with the UN Security Council resolution permitting the use of force in Libya to protect civilians, Obama has refused to articulate a clear goal for the US military involvement in Libya. The fact that the Security Council resolution essentially dooms NATO’s military intervention in Libya to strategic incoherence stalemate that can lead to the break-up of Libya is unimportant to the US President. The only thing that is important is that the US abides by the limitations dictated by the UN Security Council resolution.

As to Libya, Obama’s decision to send US forces to Libya without Congressional permission makes clear that from his perspective, the UN Security Council, rather than the US Congress is the source of authority for US military action. To the extent that the US Congress calls for the US President to act in a manner that is contrary to the UN Security Council, as far as Obama is concerned, it is the duty of the President to disregard Congress and obey the Security Council.

Given the totemic stature of the UN in the minds of the American President and the international Left, it is worth considering its nature.

A glance at UN affairs in recent days is revealing. Last week UN members elected Qatar President of the UN General Assembly and Iran one of the body’s Vice Presidents. Both countries’ representatives will use their platform to advance their regimes’ anti-American, anti-Israel and anti-Western agendas.

As Prof. Anne Bayefsky noted in the Weekly Standard last week, their first order of business will be leading the Durban III conference that will take place in New York on the sidelines of September’s General Assembly meeting. The first Durban conference was of course the infamously racist and anti-Jewish UN conference in Durban, South Africa in September 2001. At Durban Israel was singled out as the only racist, xenophobic country in the world and Jewish people were denied their right to national rights and self-determination.

The conference ended three days before the jihadist attacks on the US on September 11, 2001.

In addition to their anti-Jewish conference, the Qatari and Iranian leaders of the General Assembly will reliably advance a General Assembly resolution embracing Palestinian statehood and condemning Jewish statehood.

Behind the story: U.S. pulls out of Durban III

Anne Bayefsky
info@eyeontheun.org
June 2, 2011
For Immediate Release

This article by Anne Bayefsky appears today on Fox News.

With President Obama’s anti-Israel hostility becoming an increasing liability for Democrats, the administration finally decided Wednesday to pull out of the U.N.’s upcoming Israel-bashing extravaganza known as “Durban III.” Believe it or not, the notorious U.N. world summit on racism is coming to New York City in September with the purpose of “commemorating” the ten-year anniversary of the racist “anti-racism” conference held in Durban, South Africa in 2001.

Mr. Obama's latest lead-from-behind foreign policy move comes seven months after Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government first declared “we will not be part of this event, which commemorates an agenda that promotes racism rather than combats it.”

The decision appears to be a clear reaction to the negative political fallout surrounding Mr. Obama's recent veiled attempt to shove indefensible borders down Israel’s throat.

During Obama’s speech to the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC on May 22, he specifically referred to his decision not to attend the “Durban II” or “Durban review conference,” which was held in Geneva in 2009. But he made no mention of of U.S. participation in the 2011 Durban III event, though it would have been an ideal audience for such an announcement had he already reached a decision on it.

In 2009 President Obama decided -- just 36 hours before the meeting began -- that there was something wrong with a conference on xenophobia and intolerance headlined by Iranian President Ahmadinejad.

It was a costly delay, which saved the U.N. from even more embarrassment, as many other states would have acted in tandem with the United States and boycotted Durban II with sufficient planning.

Evidently, on May 22 the president still thought he could pull the same dawdling stunt again.

But with Democrats scrambling to recover from the president’s profound alienation of large numbers of voters deeply sympathetic to Israel, the June 1 announcement was made and dressed up as a response to a letter “from Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.” The old letter from last December was actually signed by 9 Democrats, 8 Republicans, and 1 independent, and post-dated a boycott call of the racism summit made by Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in November.

The better-late-than-never decision is not as simple, however, as it seems.

First, the U.N. General Assembly is currently negotiating a resolution on the “modalities” of Durban III. In plain English, there has been a difficult and protracted debate behind-the-scenes about the organization of the summit. The European Union, in particular, is looking for procedural dodges that will help it avoid the split that occurred during Durban II, when some EU states boycotted and others did not.Unfortunately for EU pencil-pushers, there is no escaping that the substance of the meeting is irrevocably poisoned.

By virtue of a 2010 General Assembly resolution, the purpose of Durban III is to celebrate a world conference that reveled in anti-semitism and to adopt a final declaration that reaffirms the original Durban Declaration. That’s the Declaration supposedly to combat racism, xenophobia and related intolerance but that somehow manages to charge just one of the 192 UN members with racism, namely, Israel.

The Obama administration has given no indication that it will encourage EU allies to break ranks and boycott Durban III, by insisting on a vote on this resolution and voting against.

Second, the U.N. Human Rights Council is poised to hold an event in Geneva on June 15 also “in the context of the tenth anniversary of the Durban Declaration.” With the Obama administration on the Council it appears set to attend events over there hoping nobody will notice over here.

But the Council and U.N. High Commissioner Navi Pillay – a native of Durban and chief champion of the Durban Declaration – have planned a three-hour panel discussion featuring seven carefully-selected speakers. They include, for instance, extremist Mireille Fanon-Mendes. As recently as April 25 of this year, Fanon-Mendes told the “Electronic Intifada” that Israel was an apartheid state and she supported the first and second Palestinian intifadas as well as blockade-running flotillas and the international prosecution of Israelis as war criminals.

The Durban illness runs deep. The U.N. human rights system, led by the High Commissioner and Human Rights Council, has perverted the fight against racism into a fight against the Jewish state, a democratic freedom-loving home to more than a million Arabs and a bulwark against the ravages of anti-semitism for all Jews.

Remember that the streets of Durban pulsated with signs reading “for the liberation of Quds, machine guns based on FAITH and ISLAM must be used” and “the martyr’s blood irrigates the tree of revolution in Palestine,” while the gross intolerance inside the Durban meeting halls ended on September 8, 2001. Given the inextricable connection between hate and violence, shunning Durban III on September 22 in New York City just days after the tenth anniversary of 9/11 was a no-brainer.

Now comes the hard part. U.N. demonization of Israel serves to justify Palestinian rejection of negotiations and coexistence, which in turn fuels U.N. support of a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood.

The cycle will only be broken if Palestinians and their U.N. enablers are made to face real consequences for attempting to reap the rewards of hate-mongering.

Anne Bayefsky is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust.

For more United Nations coverage see www.EYEontheUN.org.

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