Just as the pro-Israel lobby appeared to lose a fight over the appointment of Charles “Chas” Freeman as chairman of the National Intelligence Council, it is hailing a success: getting the United States to boycott Durban II, the international conference on racism.
The last conference, held in 2001, was the site of mass Palestine solidarity protests and a campaign to get Israel’s rule over the Palestinians as racist. American and Israeli officials walked out of the conference, which also sought to address the African holocaust, the slavery trade and institutions that thrived for centuries.
This comes after what Washington insiders is saying has been a series of setbacks for the lobby. Anne Joyce, Middle East Policy Council vice president listed them off, “First there was the appointment of Middle East envoy George Mitchell, the downgrading of Dennis Ross’s appointment at State Department, and now the appointment of Chas Freeman.”
U.S. officials say the United States will not participate unless a draft version of the meeting’s final report is drastically changed. The Obama administration announced this after meeting with Jewish groups angered by the draft report’s findings that the Jewish state is racist towards to non-Jews.
Why, just because Israeli laws and policies treat non-Jews as subordinates? Just because it allows Jews from anywhere to immigrate, but denies the right of return for Palestinian refugees? Just because the Palestinian population is referred to as a “demographic threat,” as a population whose growth state policies should curtail?
Yeah, how silly.
Again, the United States is glad to side with the anachronistic forces of Zionism against the most dynamic voices at the Durban conferences — not the similarly guilty and thoroughly discredited Arab despots — but international civil society, the organizations and activists from around the world working to make the world better. The United States, no matter who is President, will step on the true forces of progress in the world in the name of a backwards, violent ideology.
The Durban conferences are illuminating one important trend: Israel is becoming the test of progressivism. A time will come when no one who claims to be a progressive can credibly back Israel’s oppressive occupation and continued dispossession of the Palestinians.
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very well said
Posted by Mehammed "Abou" Mack | March 1, 2009, 10:57 amvery well said
Posted by Mehammed "Abou" Mack | March 1, 2009, 10:57 amvery well said
Posted by Mehammed "Abou" Mack | March 1, 2009, 10:57 amvery well said
Posted by Mehammed "Abou" Mack | March 1, 2009, 10:57 amvery well said
Posted by Mehammed "Abou" Mack | March 1, 2009, 10:57 amvery well said
Posted by Mehammed "Abou" Mack | March 1, 2009, 10:57 amvery well said
Posted by Mehammed "Abou" Mack | March 1, 2009, 10:57 amvery well said
Posted by Mehammed "Abou" Mack | March 1, 2009, 10:57 amSo why should it specifically mention Israel if it does not mention abuses in many other countries? Christians in Saudi Arabia being unable to build churches for example? Obummer is right, this conference is blatant anti-semitism.
Most people in the West are sick of “anti-racism” movements anyway because in practice they are pushed by the left and aimed exclusively at white Westerners to silence any protest at massive levels of unskilled immigration.
Posted by xoggoth | March 1, 2009, 11:51 amXoggoth everyone and their mom knows that Saudi Arabia is fukd up. There is no disputing this. No one is defending Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, no one.
However, there are people that actually try to justify what Israel does. This needs to be called out just like South African Apartheid was singled out despite the fact that there were “technically” worse things going on.
Posted by Arayus | March 1, 2009, 12:06 pm“”Xoggoth everyone and their mom knows that Saudi Arabia is fukd up. There is no disputing this. No one is defending Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, no one.”"
Then I’m sure nobody will fail to point out the obvious at the conference… Because the Arab states that dominate the conference are fair-minded like that, yeah?
Posted by Joe | March 1, 2009, 10:31 pmCan you put the conspiracy theory nonsense to rest Joe.
The Arab states do not dominate the conference, they merely mention the Israeli transgressions and transgressions done by other Arab states. Everyone is free to mention anyones transgressions at the conference, including the Saudi ones.
Like I said no one is defending the Saudi Arabian human rights record. But people actually try to justify Israeli Apartheid because Israel has neighbors that do “bad stuff to.”
The utter retardation of this argument is baffling. Its equivalant to saying that we shouldn’t have aided South Africa overcome Apartheid because the Black population wasent progressive on issues such as homosexuality or womans rights. Or that we shouldn’t have helped them because the other Black people in Africa do “terrible” stuff to.
Posted by Arayus | March 2, 2009, 4:35 pmGreat post!! I just have to copy it
Posted by iPod | June 8, 2009, 9:25 am7rvZuk comment1 ,
Posted by Vixdqsha | June 27, 2009, 11:04 pm