Tuesday 4 March 2008

Durban II: Just Say "Non", Judeosphere

Judeosphere makes this appeal - you can sign the petition by sending an email to Ligue Internationale contre le Racisme et l'Antisémitisme (LICRA) licra@licra.org

"On Feb. 27, a petition was sent to the French newspaper Le Monde, signed by such prominent figures as Alan Finkielkraut, Claude Lanzmann and Elie Wiesel.

The letter denounces the rise of anti-semitism in public forums and urges Western democracies to follow the example of Canada and refuse to participate in the second UN-sponsored conference against racism known as Durban II.

You can read the full text of the letter and the growing number of signatories here. Some excerpts:

"At Durban, in South Africa, the global conference against racism was held under the auspices of the United Nations, in the very city where Gandhi began his career as a lawyer. It is in the name of human rights that "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" was chanted; and it is in the name of cultural relativism that there was silence on the discrimination and violence committed against women.

The great political crimes have always needed words to lend themselves legitimacy. Words presage action. From Mein Kampf ... to Stalin to Pol Pot, examples abound that justify the necessary extermination of the people’s enemy in the name of a race, in the name of the workers’ emancipation or in the name of some divine spiritual order. Totalitarian ideologues have replaced religions. … On September 11, 2001, several days after the Durban conference, it was in God’s name that the worst terrorist crime in history was committed.

Either democracies get their act together, following Canada's example, who just announced its refusal to participate in Durban II, recognizing that it risked being "marked by expressions of intolerance and anti-Semitism," and cease to abstain from or vote for resolutions contrary to the universal ideal of 1948, or religious obscurantism and its trail of political crimes will triumph under the good auspices of the United Nations. And when the hateful words are transformed into acts, nobody will be able to say: "We didn’t know.""

Let’s be reminded of the role played by some European NGOs at Durban, namely the Coordinating Committee for NGOs on the Question of Palestine (ECCP), a Brussels based association of NGOs cooperating with the UN Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, headed by a Belgian Pierre Galand, who is still busy demonising Israel. Pierre Galand is the Chairman of the Belgo-Palestinian Association and, amazingly, in 2006 was appointed Chairman of the Belgian francophone secular movement (Centre d’action laïque) , a member of the International Humanist Ethical Union (IHEU)!!!
NGO Monitor Special Report: "Pierre Galand (Belgium) Using Political NGOs to Promote Demonization & Anti-Semitism in the UN & EU"
Philosemitism: "Israel on trial in Brussels - a prelude to Durban II?, The latest in a long list of initiatives in Europe to demonise Israel"

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