Durban Review Conference... your opinion?

[Polis4rule]

If you guys do not know about the Durban Review Conference, go read the Wikipedia link to it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durban_Review_Conference

Essentially, it is a conference to discuss the effects of racism and ways to prevent it (official name is World Conference Against Racism). Now this does seem all fine and dandy, I mean trying to go against racism is a great idea, no? However, numerous countries, notably for our sake Canada and the United States, have boycotted the Conference, as it makes numerous references to antisemitism.

Overall, 9 countries have boycotted the Conference (they are Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, and the United States). The Czech Republic went to the first day and then proceeded to boycott the conference. According to the Wiki article, most of the EU nations (like Great Britain) only sent low level delegations. Of notable interest is the fact that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attended the event. Yes, the same guy who doubted that the Holocaust ever happened attended an event on racism. He also held a speech, lamenting Israel and calling Zionism racist (as well as a whole load of antisemitic beliefs and statements). At this, numerous countries walked out of the Conference, of which included Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, St. Kitts and Nevis and United Kingdom.

So my question to you guys is, what do you think of this conference? Do you think that the countries boycotting have a viable argument (some arguments located on the Wiki article). What is your opinion on Ahmadinejad, his speech, and the countries who walked out (and were given orders to do so in case that happened)?

 

[ElCee]

There's a reason we boycotted Durban II, because it's nothing more than an excuse for racism and hatred under the guise of preventing it. All we did was save time by not going in the first place instead of going all the way there and then having to walk out on that looney toon. I did get a kick out of the clown protester(or was there more than one?), though. Maybe he was a delegate, it's kind of hard to tell these days. <_<

 

[Luduan]

While Ahmadinejad's calling others racist rightly evokes charges of hypocrisy and while the conference obviously should not focus exclusively on Israel, the quotations I have read from his speech seem hardly unwarranted or overblown. From my understanding (which may be wrong), he nowhere denied the Holocaust or echoed his calls for Israel to be "wiped off the map" (of which the media are wont to remind us while drumming up anti-Iran war fever), but merely stated the facts: that Israel has implemented apartheid-like policies in the occupied territories, that Zionism's historical development as a movement was patently racist, and that Israel routinely engages in brutal state terrorism. Why all criticisms of Israeli policies must be construed as antisemitic is beyond me (although Ahmadinejad is undoubtedly an antisemite). No one can criticize China's policies against Tibet, after all, that is being anti-Chinese! No one can criticize Iran's policies, after all, that is being anti-Persian! No one should have criticized South African apartheid, after all, that is anti-Afrikaner! The idiocy is overwhelming. A nation-state is not an entire ethnic group.

 

[Misty]

the UN is a terrible place to fight racism given that more than half the countries in it are extremely racist

 

[Deck Knight]

the UN is a terrible place to fight racism given that more than half the countries in it are extremely racist

The trouble is which half are considered racist. Usually the US and Israel are singled out because nobody expects them to send an air raid the next day if you insult them. (Or ground force as the case may be, your 3rd world hovel may vary)

Luduan always amuses me on this topic. He might as well just say push the yahouds into the sea, because he's swallowed Hamas' drivel hook, line, and sinker. I wonder if he also believes the Jews drink the blood of children and possess demon horns, as they are so often depicted doing in Arab media, including Pallywood Productions. If Israel stands down there will be no Israel. If Palestine (and its radical backers) stands down there will be no war.

The difference is the Arabs actually are racist and hate the Jews based solely on religious premises whereas Israelis really don't give a damn what your religion or race is if you aren't strapping on a suicide vest or launching mortars from a schoolhouse like a coward.

As for the UN itself, they would be a joke if only incomprehensible ignorance, astounding hubris, and endemic corruption were funny.

 

[Hipmonlee]

The difference is the Arabs actually are racist

Are you sure you wanted to say this?

Be careful!

Have a nice day.

 

[Luduan]

The trouble is which half are considered racist. Usually the US and Israel are singled out because nobody expects them to send an air raid the next day if you insult them. (Or ground force as the case may be, your 3rd world hovel may vary)

In light of recent (and not so recent) history, I'd say the United States and Israel are more likely to "send an air raid" under flimsy pretenses than are most other nations.

Luduan always amuses me on this topic. He might as well just say push the yahouds into the sea, because he's swallowed Hamas' drivel hook, line, and sinker. I wonder if he also believes the Jews drink the blood of children and possess demon horns, as they are so often depicted doing in Arab media, including Pallywood Productions.

Jews are not Israel. You seem to lack the very basic knowledge that a government and nation-state is not the sum of its people. The two are not equivalent.

If Israel stands down there will be no Israel. If Palestine (and its radical backers) stands down there will be no war.

Given that the Arab League, Hamas, and practically every nation on earth (all but seven last year -- US, Israel, Australia, Palau, Nauru, Micronesia, Marshall Islands) agree on a peaceful solution under the two-state settlement, following long recognized principles of international law (many of which the US is supposed to abide by under Article 6 of the Constitution), I'd say that Israel has a good chance of surviving if they would stop their pitiless, unwarranted, expansionist aggression and their starving of Palestinians.

The difference is the Arabs actually are racist and hate the Jews based solely on religious premises whereas Israelis really don't give a damn what your religion or race is if you aren't strapping on a suicide vest or launching mortars from a schoolhouse like a coward.

Or perhaps they have legitimate grievances, like the fact that Israel is on their land and is taking measures to cement occupation. The schoolhouse claim is patently false: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054284.html (assuming this is the incident in question).

 

[Jenigmat]

The difference is the Arabs actually are racist and hate the Jews based solely on religious premises whereas Israelis really don't give a damn what your religion or race is if you aren't strapping on a suicide vest or launching mortars from a schoolhouse like a coward.

Right because the Arab-Israel conflict has nothing to do with the conflict between perceived imperialism against Arabs by Western-aided Israelis and the forces of Arab nationalism.

I challenge you to read the Draft Charter of the PLO and actually find something held against Israeli from a religious point of view. The first significant group to actually oppose the statehood of Israel based on an Islamic fundamentalist position was Hamas, which was only founded in 1988.

Read the Arab Office's Case for Palestine, written in 1946, and say that the only opposition to Israel is only religious.

As it says, "The whole Arab people (Arab, not Muslim) is unalterably opposed to the attempt to oppose Jewish immigration and settlement upon it, and ultimately to establish a Jewish State in Palestine. Its opposition is based primarily upon right. The Arabs of Palestine are descendants of the indigenous inhabitants of the country, who have been in occupation of it since the beginning of history; they cannot agree that it is right to subject an indigenous population against its will to alien immigrants, whose claim is based upon a historical connection which ceased effectively many centuries ago."

By calling it solely an issue of religion, you're distorting the issues that have been important for longer than 20 or so years. You cannot go over and tell the four million Palestinian refugees who were effectively kicked out of Palestine by Israeli soldiers during the wars that the only thing they have against Israel is religion.

And as for calling Arabs in the region cowards for daring to defend themselves instead of submitting to rule by a group of people that have effectively only been in the region for 120 years with the blessing and aid of the West, then I can only guess that you'd consider all those Israeli soldiers who have no compunction for killing innocent Palestinian women and children in cold blood heroic?

 

[Polis4rule]

And as for calling Arabs in the region cowards for daring to defend themselves instead of submitting to rule by a group of people that have effectively only been in the region for 120 years with the blessing and aid of the West, then I can only guess that you'd consider all those Israeli soldiers who have no compunction for killing innocent Palestinian women and children in cold blood heroic?

That is a slippery slope as well, as I can easily turn the tables and say that the Palestine region was originally the Jewish homeland, that was taken by invading Arabs many years ago. The Jews were the first settlers in the region, not the Arabs.

 

[Jenigmat]

That is a slippery slope as well, as I can easily turn the tables and say that the Palestine region was originally the Jewish homeland, that was taken by invading Arabs many years ago. The Jews were the first settlers in the region, not the Arabs.

I do not think it would be a valid point for me to make that the only real claim to the land that the Jews have is a religious one, but I would point out that as far as my understanding of ancient Israel/Judah goes, the Israelites have to a large extent only been in Israel because after being kicked out they make a renewed claim to the land based on religious points. Again, I don't think I'd want to debate this point, as I'm entirely not really sure about that timeline.

However, even if we accept the point that there was a strong Jewish presence in the region up to 100 or so AD, made up of an indigenous people with a real claim to the Kingdom of Israel, the people who populated the region in the 1880s were not that same group of people: they were Eastern Europeans who, any claim to a Jewish homeland as a means of escaping persecution notwithstanding, essentially emigrated to Palestine with the full intention of eventually making the region a Jewish state. They may have claim to being ethnically Jewish, at least in terms of race because of the tendencies for Jews to marry other Jews, but any group that spends centuries in Europe, has a vested interest in European politics or speaks European languages is still inextricably tied to Europe.

The claims of Jews to the region is essentially one based on religion, and more pertinently, one based on historical events thousands of years old. On the other hand, the Palestinians kicked out were people who actually were living on the land, people with houses, keys, farms, and jobs, people who lived there and had lived there all their lives. I will not discount the validity of the Israeli claim, but I think that the claims of Palestinians actually inhabiting the region are equally, if not more important.

To say that the Palestinians should leave because Israelis were there first is like saying white Americans should leave North America because Native Americans, displaced by the influx of immigration, were the original inhabitants of the land. While it is true that Americans were descendants of foreign regions who committed atrocities against the indigenous people, as you might say the Assyrians/Babylonians were, if a group of Native Americans-who lived in a different country altogether and had lived there for centuries-used the historical claim of older Native Americans as justification for the systematic oppression and forced exile of modern white Americans, it would be completely invalid and would violate the rights of modern Americans, who have lived here for centuries.