Will a President Obama Boycott Durban II?

By Ed Lasky

Here is an interesting logical exercise.

Senator Obama has expressed a willingness to meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Cuba...well you get the idea. A President Obama would want to-in modern parlance "dialogue" with everyone. This includes Iran which denies the Holocaust occurred yet promises to commit another one when it boasts of its plans to eradicate Israel.

One of his first acts as President would be to convene a summit with all the Muslim nations of the world and America to hear their concerns. Certainly, among those concerns expressed by the tyrants, autocracy, theocrats, and kleptocrats at that summit would be America's support for Israel. Regardless, President Obama would hear them out and by his presence grant them respectability.

Given his penchant for such outreach, would a President Obama boycott Durban II? The first Durban Conference Against Racism generated into an anti-Semitic hate-fest reminiscent of Nazi rallies. In the words of noted scholar Anne Bayefsky, Durban II "promises to become yet another UN platform for anti-Semitism and the demonization of Israel."

Senator Norm Coleman has quizzed Secretary of State Rice about the State Departments approach to Durban II (the Bush Administration boycotted the first Durban conference when it became clear the anti-Semitic direction it was heading towards). Her answer was non-committal since the conference would take place during the next Administration. Ms. Bayefsky poses a question: is the State Department deliberately stone-walling the issue as it eagerly awaits the election of Barack Obama as President? The State Department after all always favor such conferences.

Bayefsky writes:

One popular explanation for the mysterious indecision is that Barack Obama is casting a long shadow over the State Department. The theory is that department officials eagerly anticipate a President Obama whose salutatory gestures toward the U.N. would be something akin to a giant bear hug. The U.N. penchant for combating racism and intolerance by demonizing Jewish self-determination, under this scenario, will be just another inconvenient truth. In the meantime, the bureaucracy is managing to stifle decision-making along any lines a President Obama and other U.N. enthusiasts might abjure.

Bayefsky revealed the direction Durban II would take when she pulls out a quote that had been made by one UN official, Craig Mokhiber, who is involved in the planning of the conference and who once served as the UN adviser to the Palestinian Authority. Mokhiber had previously said this about Israel:

“One of the features of the violence that is perpetrated against the Palestinians is [that it is] random. It is perpetrated against the elderly, the infirm, anyone who happens to be a non-Jewish member of that society. It is very clearly racist violence.”

He continued this line of attack a couple of weeks ago when discussing Durban II when he referred to the Palestinians as a "persecuted group" with "which it was important" to deal with at Durban. he then suggested Jews were the problem in Durban I". According to this UN official (your tax dollars at work) Jews are the problem. How will Durban II deal with the "Jewish problem"?

A related question-since Barack Obama has highlighted the role that human rights and international organizations would play in his Administration. Would President Obama-again, who wants to meet with a whole gallery of rogues-continue the Bush policy of refusing to participate in the UN Human Right Council-a body that has devoted itself to one series of anti-Israel measure after another and is run by rogues?

George Soros-a key Obama supporter who funds a wide range of 527 groups that will play a role in the campaign ahead also funds a variety of Orwellian-named "human rights" groups that have taken a harsh anti-Israel approach (think Human Rights Watch). Will President Obama boycott the UN Human Rights Council? Will he boycott Durban II? No word yet from the Obama campaign.*

* The Clinton campaign has already pledged to keep the upcoming Durban conference on racism from becoming anti-Semitic.