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High Road To Durban
merican Jewish leaders are justifiably
concerned about a United Nations
conference that will convene at the
end of the month in Durban, South
Africa. Unless the conference organizers come to
their senses, the meeting will adopt a resolution
reviving the viciously hateful proposition that
Zionism is equivalent to racism.
One immediate question is whether the United
States should send representatives to the confer-
ence. It boycotted U.N.-sponsored human rights
gatherings in 1978 and 1983 that threatened to
make the Jewish state the object of condemnation
while deliberately ignoring the scores of tin-pot
tyrannies that are the chief practitioners
of ethnic hatred in today's world.
Spurning the conference would be a
simple solution were it not for the
wishes of many black American leaders who feel
that this country has never owned up to its own
problems of racial intolerance and who would
like the conference to promote specific actions
such as reparation payments for America's role in
encouraging the slave trade. Jewish leadership is
hesitant to urge a boycott lest that be misinter-
preted as opposition to legitimate interests and
sensitivities of black Americans.
Further complicating the equation is the pres-
sure on the Bush administration to behave more
multilaterally after its ham-handed rejections of
the Kyoto pact on global warming and the treaty
limiting nuclear weapons and its planned abro-
gation of the treaty limiting the development of
anti-ballistic missiles.
In preparation for the World Conference
Against Racism, Racial Discrimination,
Xenophobia and Related Intolerance — the title
itself is a masterpiece of bureaucratic gobbledy-
gook — a group of Arab and Muslim nations
pushed for draft language saying Israel was
A
founded on an ideology "based on racial
supremacy." The draft calls Israel an "apartheid,
racist and fascist state" this is committing a
"holocaust," "genocide" and -ethnic cleansing"
against the Palestinians in its "quest to create a
Jewish settler state."
Mary Robinson, the U.N. high commissioner
for human rights, has quite properly urged that
the language be dropped, and her boss,
Secretary-General Koff Annan, has also deplored
the efforts to politicize what had been planned
as an relatively modest effort to call attention to
the continuing global problems of discrimina-
tion. But the same handful of representatives
who engineered America's shameful
exclusion from the U.N. Human
Rights Commission earlier this year is
pushing to retain the attack on Israel.
The threat of a U.S. boycott may be enough
to expunge the offensive words and ideas from
the draft resolutions. But they could all too easi-
ly be revived once the conference is under way
in Durban.
In that case, the U.S. must be prepared with
an effective exit strategy that calls wide attention
to the way the term "racism" is being perverted
by the countries that most sharply restrict indi-
vidual freedom and most routinely trample on
their citizens' rights. America must determine in
advance that it will not go quietly if the confer-
ence reverts to the old "Zionism equals racism"
travesty. And it must make its intentions crystal
clear to the conference organizers.
For now, it is better to go to Durban prepared
to fight for real resolutions that condemn real
racism and real human-rights violations. If those
emerge, the world can claim a victory. And if
the conference revives "z = r," the United States
must walk and leave the conferees to stew in
their own indigestible juices. D
Dry Bones
EDITO RIAL
Young Adults Stand With Israel
s
ince 1948, Israel has protected Jews
are being challenged to support the Jewish state
around the world. When no other
during a time of desperate need.
country welcomed the ships of
From July 1 11, a group of 150 young
Holocaust survivors, Israel opened her
American Jews carried the message that we do
ports. When Jews were
stand with Israel and her people
taken hostage in Entebbe,
when we participated in the
Uganda, Israel freed them.
United Jewish Communities-
When Jews were eager to
arranged CommUNITY Mission
escape their native
to Israel. The Jewish Federation
Ethiopia, Israel rescued
of Metropolitan Detroit was the
them.
local sponsor.
Now, some 53 years after
This is some of what we expe-
Golda Meir came to the
rienced:
United States to generate
• Shabbat on the southern steps
SCOTT
JOSH
Jewish support for Israel's
of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
KAUFMAN
OPPERER
defense on the eve of inde-
• Dinner in a Negev canyon
pendence, American Jews
Community Views
YOUNG ADULTS on page 26
-
The young adults on the CommUNITY Mission gather after
saying the Shehechiyanu (blessing of gratitude) in Jerusalem.