The Durban Review

By Michael D. Evans from Geneva, Switzerland

The United Nations is hosting the Durban Review Conference, April 20-24, 2009, with the sole objective of eliminating racial discrimination. What a noble experiment. Unless, of course, eliminating racial discrimination excludes everyone other than Christians and Jews.

One would think the UN would invite President Barack Obama to be a keynote speaker rather than Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who denies the Holocaust, and considers Israel a "stinking corpse" that needs to be wiped off the map.

In 2001, just days before the 9/11 attacks, the UN sponsored the first Durban Conference. Instead of fighting racial discrimination, Durban only fueled and fed it. The Crusaders (America) and the Zionists (Israel) were charged with racism, slavery, and colonialism. This despite the fact charges were being levied by Arab countries guilty of blatant discrimination. No mention was made during the conference of the genocide in Rwanda or Iraq or the gassing of the Kurds; no condemnation was levied against Iran's use of children as mine-sweepers during the Iran-Iraq War; nor was there a mention of the repressive regime in Saudi Arabia.

Jews are banned from setting a foot on the soil in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Middle East. It is no wonder that Durban deteriorated into an anti-Semitic hate fest against Israel.

The U.S. and Israel exited the proceedings in South Africa in protest while conference goers took to the streets to parade vile posters, which portrayed the Jews as having fangs dripping with blood. Following 9/11, the world media refused to call the events of that infamous day what they were: bigotry against the Americans (Crusaders).

Libya has chaired the planning committee, whose membership includes Iran and Cuba. "It is a conference on human rights that is being chaired by people who abuse these rights."

Among the high-ranking officials who will address the conference at Monday's opening session, which coincidentally falls on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day, is Iran's President Ahmadinejad.

The non-governmental group, UN Watch, has noted that Saudi Arabia, also with a problematic record on human rights, has donated $150,000 to the event; China has donated $20,000 and Iran $40,000. Russia, committee chair on the draft text, had contributed $600,000.

Although the U.S. has left the door open for the possibility of a compromise, this week it issued a clear position statement in which it said it would not participate in the conference as long as the text contained problematic clauses relating to free speech. It also objected to the opening paragraph of the text, which reaffirms the 2001 document that singled out Israel.

The war on terror is, in fact, not a war against terror or against an ideology; it is a war against bigotry and racism. This war has never really been fought.

Even entertaining the willingness to debate the right of the Jewish people to exist is beyond comprehension. The Holy Grail of understanding is that racism and bigotry are the soil in which the virus of terror grows. This is a war that cannot be won unless the root of racism is exposed.

The leaders of the countries which will participate in the Durban Review Conference are bigots and truly believe the diabolical lies quoted by Hitler from Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion are true. This is the reason mosques, mullahs and madrassas are allowed to teach that Jews are descendants of monkeys and pigs; all wars are caused by the Jews; the Jews invented AIDS; and the Zionists attacked America on 9/11 and blamed the Arabs.

It is believed there is a Jewish conspiracy to rule the world, and that the Jews control the media and banks. Some believe Jews drink the blood of non-Jews and also use their blood to make matzo – or the "blood-libel" myth.

Ahmadinejad has become the poster boy for racial discrimination. He smiles, while watching his nuclear centrifuges on a fast-forward track, and says he likes Jews; he just hates Zionists and denies the Holocaust. His rhetoric did not appear to inspire the millions of Zionists living in Israel who are aware that one-third of the Jewish race was exterminated during the Holocaust – including five million adults and almost one million children.

America thought she was exempt from terror until 9/11, and still resists today acknowledging that she was attacked for being a Christian nation (Crusaders.)

When the UN hosted a specially-convened session of the 43rd General Assembly in December 1988 for PLO chief Yasser Arafat, I was the first journalist to challenge him to denounce the PLO racist covenant which calls for the destruction of the Jewish people.

America's first black president has a golden opportunity, after having been wined and dined by European heads of state. He could be a twenty-first century Abraham Lincoln and mobilize the EU against participating in the Durban Review Conference by simply making a public appeal to them. If the EU agreed not to attend the event, it would be a major blow against racism and bigotry.