Obama defends decision to withdraw from racist Durban II conference

Obama: Durban II risks 'hypocritical' Israel hatred
By Cnaan Liphshiz, Haaretz Correspondent, and News Agencies

U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday said that the United States had decided to boycott a United Nations conference on racism because the draft for the summit risked declaring "hypocritical allegations" against Israel.

 

"I would love to be involved in a useful conference that addressed continuing issues of racism and discrimination around the globe," Obama said in Trinidad on Sunday after attending the Summit of the Americas.

But he said the language of the UN's draft declaration "raised a whole set of objectionable provisions" and risked a reprise of the 2001 predecessor summit in Durban, "which became a session through which folks expressed antagonism toward Israel in ways that were often times completely hypocritical and counterproductive."

 

The Obama administration announced Saturday that it would boycott the conference, scheduled to begin on Monday in Geneva, due to language about Israel and the West in the meeting's final document.

 

"We expressed in the run-up to this conference our concerns that if you adopted all of the language from 2001, that's not something we can sign up for," Obama said on Sunday. "Our participation would have involved putting our imprimatur on something we just didn't believe in."

 

Concern is high that the April 20 to 25 conference in Geneva may descend into heated debate over Israel that marred the last such gathering eight years ago, especially since Iran's hardline president - who has called for Israel's destruction - will attend.

 

The United Nations said it organized the forum to help heal the wounds from its last such conference, in Durban, South Africa. The United States and Israel walked out of the 2001 conference after Arab states sought to define Zionism as racist.