AIJAC Calls for Durban 2 Withdrawal
The Australian/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council has added its voice to those requesting the Australian Government to reconsider participating in the Durban 2 “anti-racism” conference next month.
AIJAC National Chairman Mark Leibler
The 2001 Durban 1 conference, established to create world-wide understanding of anti-racism policies, degenerated into bitter demonstrations of antisemitism.
AIJAC Executive Director, Colin Rubenstein, has stated that the outcome document on the table outlining the format for the conference names Israel, “alone among the world’s countries as guilty of racism as well as effectively licensing Holocaust denial.”
U.S. President Obama has made it clear the the United States will not attend Durban 2 in Switzerland unless the draft document is suitably changed. But Mark Leibler, National Chairman of AIJAC, has said: “It is understandable that Australia has wanted to do everything possible to try to salvage a positive outcome out of Durban 2. It is now clear that this not going to be possible. The U.S. have stated that the draft outcome document for the conference is ‘simply not salvageable’.”
Leibler concluded: “It is now clear no positive outcome for the fight against racism can be achieved by this fatally flawed conference. The onlyprincipled and constructive step Australia can now take is to withdraw from the Durban 2 process – unlessand until the current politiced ‘draft outcome document’ is thrown out and the process commences again from the beginning.”
Israel and Canada have already officially withdrawn from the conference.
Read author Alan Gold’s report of Durban 1.
