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Mordechai Yedid, deputy director of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, speaks at a news conference at the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, on Sunday. (AP)
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| By Ellis Shuman September 3, 2001 |
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Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Affairs Minister Shimon Peres will reportedly decide today whether Israel should withdraw its delegation from the World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa. Israel's decision will be made in coordination with the United States, as both countries wait to see whether compromise language suggested by Norway for the official conference resolutions stands a chance of being accepted.
The exact wording of the Norwegian proposal has not been released, but it will apparently remove anti-Israel text from the resolutions.
According to Israeli sources cited by Maariv, the
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"A conference against racism has turned into a conference promoting racism."
- Stacy Burdett, Associate Director, Anti-Defamation League
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Norwegian compromise answers three key demands of the Israeli delegation. Israel has reportedly demanded that the conference closing statement express no hatred towards Israel, that Israel would not be singled out in the declaration and that there would be no specific condemnation of Israel.
U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos (D-California) said the Norwegian compromise had a reference to the Palestinian issue, but was acceptable to Washington. "We have made an enormous concession by agreeing to the Norwegian language as it is,'' said Lantos, who is attending the Durban conference with the U.S. delegation. "We will not go one step beyond this," he said, threatening a U.S. walkout if the text of the Norwegian proposal was changed.
Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior told The Jerusalem Post that the Norwegian compromise was not ideal, but if the conference accepted it, it could then focus on its original goal of uniting the world against racism.
"The kidnapping of this conference by Arab regimes that don't know the first thing about human rights has created an enormous backlash," Melchior said.
Melchior had originally planned to delivered on an impassioned address stating Israel's position on racism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Zionism, accompanied by the blast of a shofar, the traditional ram's horn used by Jews in religious ceremonies. In the end, he didn't attend, and delegation head Mordechai Yedid, Foreign Ministry Deputy Director (pictured above), delivered the address instead, without the shofar blast.
Peres reportedly spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell last night to coordinate decisions on leaving the conference. Peres said yesterday that "Israel may walk out," due to the anti-Israeli resolutions drafted as "an outburst of hate, of anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism without any consideration."
President Moshe Katsav said yesterday that the State of Israel could teach all of its accusers at the Durban conference how to uphold human rights. He asserted that the Knesset, the Israeli courts and the Israeli media are among the most advanced in the world with respect to concern for and protection of human and civil rights. Katsav noted that several of Israel's accusers are, in their remarks, guilty of the very racism and anti-Semitism that they are attacking Israel for.
NGO conference decried as "circus for Israel-bashing"
On Saturday the Durban conference of non-government organizations (NGOs) adopted language which called Israel "a racist apartheid state in which Israel's brand of apartheid as a crime against humanity has been characterized by separation and segregation...and inhumane acts.''
The non-binding resolutions, which attacked Israel of "systematic perpetration of racist crimes including war crimes, acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing," were intended to influence the World Conference against Racism's final declarations.
''The decision of the conference of the NGOs adopted [Saturday] morning is outright incitement, whose only purpose is to delegitimize the Jewish state and its people,'' Israeli delegation spokesman Noam Katz told Reuters.
Not all human rights organizations supported the NGO conference declaration. Reed Brody, executive director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said, "Israel has committed serious crimes against Palestinian people but it is simply not accurate to use the word genocide and to equate Zionism with racism."
"We are not ready to make the assertion that Israel is engaged in genocide," said Claudio Cordone, a spokesman for the London-based Amnesty International.
Delegates of Jewish groups walked out in protest from many of the conference's regional and interest-backed caucuses. "A conference against racism has turned into a conference promoting racism," said Stacy Burdett, an associate director with the Anti-Defamation League.
Foreign Ministry legal adviser Alan Baker said that in their resolutions, NGO delegates "have only succeeded in turning the conference into a circus for Israeli bashing."
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