"I have been distressed and disturbed by the vitri-
olic words and inappropriate content in the NGO
document," Robinson said.
As a result, she said, she was unable to recom-
mend the entire document to the governmental del-
egates, only passages of it. Especially "unacceptable,"
she said, were accusations that Israel was guilty of
"genocide."
Nevertheless, she reiterated that she believes refer-
ence must be made in the final declaration to "the
suffering of the Palestinian people."
Jewish activists remained skeptical.
Surely, Robinson and other organizers knew what
was coming down the pike, the activists said, and
could have intervened. Likewise, they said, interna-
tional human rights groups could have worked to
defuse the crisis before it hit Durban.
"Hatred Stops Dialogue
Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel was invited to
Durban to speak, and initially accepted before read-
ing the draft declarations. He withdrew and said
Tuesday that the United Nations would now be
associated with "shame."
"I do not believe I can dialogue with hatred,"
Wiesel said, answering critics who believed the
United States should have stayed at the conference
and debated the controversial language. "Hatred
stops dialogue, and there was so much hatred there
that I got frightened."
Instead, a group like Amnesty International may
have fanned the flames by accusing Israel of war
crimes in its response to the past year of
Palestinian violence. An Amnesty press release
handed out during the NGO conference cited sev-
eral examples of racism and human rights abuses
around the world, but mentioned only Israel by
name.
In a press conference Monday that tried to refo-
cus attention on the conference's ostensible anti-
racist aim, Irene Khan, secretary general of
Amnesty International, allowed that "there are very
serious human rights issues in the Middle East. If
we name one country, we should name them all."
Still, she said, "I think it's time to move ahead."
That response was too little, too late for Felice
Gaer, a human rights expert for the American Jewish
Committee.
"The human rights movement above all is about
speaking out," Gaer said. "The tepid, after-the-fact
remarks about the unquestionable hate-filled lan-
guage and spreading of hate propaganda is an
extraordinary disappointment."
Jewish activists speculate that the Palestinians, pre-
sumably funded by the Arab world, spent millions
to prepare for the conference. Activists say they saw
workers unloading huge cartons of posters, banners
and free T-shirts bearing slogans such as "Israel Is an
Apartheid State" and "Zionism Is Racism."
The Palestinians also handed out thousands of free
kaffiyeh scarves in Palestinian national colors, which
many participants happily draped around their
necks.
One woman, a Bosnian from war-ravaged Sarajevo,
was spotted wearing the scarf-like a bandana.
"The Israelis should give it up, and the
DEBACLE on page 26
The Battering To Come
American Jewish leaders worry that conference will further isolate Israel.
JAMES D. BESSER
Washington Correspondent
I
srael faces a return to the
dark days of international
isolation, and Jewish
activists may be about to con-
front a new surge of internation-
al anti-Semitism in the name of
human rights.
Those are some of the poten-
tial results of this week's interna-
tional racism conference in
Durban, South Africa, according
to U.S. Jewish leaders.
On Sunday, the conference
non-governmental organization
forum adopted a resolution
branding Israel a "apartheid,
racist" state and accusing its gov-
ernment of "genocide and ethnic
cleansing." And on Monday, the
United States and Israel with-
drew their low-level delegations
after concluding they would be
unable to remove anti-Israel Ian.-
guage from the final declaration
produced by the government
portion of the conference.
At midweek, European and
South African officials were
working frantically to find a
compromise formula, but Jewish
leaders say that even if that effort
succeeds, Israel has sustained
major body blows at Durban.
"It's a return to the language
and attitudes of 26 years ago,"
said Daniel Mariaschin, execu-
tive vice-president of B'nai
B'rith, referring to the 1975
U.N. "Zionism as racism" reso-
lution. "I don't know what's
going to happen in the next few
days, but it's a major statement
that the United States and Israel
did not get the support they
needed to block this effort
months ago."
The hijacked conference repre-
sents a new and potent strategy
by the Palestinians, Jewish lead-
ers say. The goal is to undercut
Israel's legitimacy in the interna:
tional arena, not just leverage its
leaders into making more con-
cessions to the Palestinians.
"Durban is a wake-up call,'
said Rabbi Abraham Cooper,
associate dean of the Simon
Wiesenthal Center, who attend-
ed the conference. "Just as
[Palestinian Authority leader
Yasser] Arafat made a tactical
BAT' ERING on page 22
A Nation Shocked,
For some Israelis, U.N. forum revives memories of persecution.
DAVID LANDAU
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jerusalem
sraelis had little time to
savor, with grim gratification,
the United States' walkout
from the U.N. World Conference
Against Racism on Monday.
Early Tuesday morning, a
Palestinian suicide bomber blew
himself up outside a hospital in
downtown Jerusalem, gravely
injuring a policeman and
wounding a dozen passers-by.
While Israel was raked over the
coals in Durban, South Africa,
for its "aggression" and "racism"
in response to Palestinian vio-
lence, Palestinian terror bombings
in the heart of civilian areas got
little attention at the conference.
In such bombings, men,
women and children are targeted
only because they are Jews.
There is no attempt to narrow
down the field of victims by
applying other criteria such as
age or fighting ability. Race is
the sole death warrant.
I
While Tuesday's bomb belongs
in the context of a conflict in
which both sides have bitter griev-
ances, the irony of Israel being
physically attacked on the streets
of Jerusalem while being verbally
assailed in the meeting rooms of
Durban was not lost on Israelis.
The Israeli public is united
behind the government's decision
Monday to follow the United States
in walking out of the conference.
"This is the first time that the
opposition entirely endorses the
government's position," opposition
leader Yossi Sarid said Tuesday.
Taking Stock
However, important differences
of opinion, which transcend the
usual hawk-dove divide, are
emerging in Israel as a trauma-
tized nation begins to take stock.
The fault line seems to be
forming between those seeking
rational explanations and advo-
cating rational responses to the
harsh anti-Israeli criticism at
Durban and others who feel the
surge of anti-Semitism on dis-
play has deep and dark roots
that can't be plumbed by reason,
throwing some Israelis back into
a fortress mentality they thought
had been left behind.
Leftist-rationalists do not
excuse the Israel-bashers at the
U.N. conference or the NGO
conference that preceded it. Yet
they maintain that Israel's 34-
year occupation of land the
Palestinians claim in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip has blight-
ed Israel's image in much of the
world, especially among Western
liberals and among nations that
were former colonies.
Rationalists on the right say
Israel has failed to respond with
enough toughness and resilience
to the past year of Palestinian
violence, leading haters of Israel
to conclude they can attack the
Jewish state in the international
arena with impunity.
Politicians on both sides, among
them former Prime Minister
Binyarnin Netanyahu of the Likud
Party and leading labor Party
SHOCKED on page 25
2001
19