Durban II Debacle

Photo by Dan ie lla Za lcmd n /Whi lme d la Commons

Delegates walk out on Ahmadinejad hate speech.

Some hecklers did not even
wait for him to open his mouth.
French Jewish students wearing
multicolored clown wigs and
red plastic clown noses shouted
out "racist" as Ahmadinejad
stood up to speak.
Protesters at the event held
placards reading: "This is a
circus. A racist cannot fight
racism:' and repeatedly inter-
rupted the speech with shouts
of "Shame! Shame!" and
"Racist! Racist!"

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Tovah Lazaroff
The Jerusalem Post

0

n the eve of Holocaust
Remembrance Day, nations
from around the world
applauded a speech in which Iranian
President Iviahmoud Ahmadinejad called
for the destruction of Israel.
"Governments must be encouraged
and supported in their fights at eradi-
cating this barbaric racism ... Efforts
must be made to put an end to Zionism:'
Ahmadinejad said as he addressed
the U.N.'s weeklong World Conference
Against Racism, Racial Discrimination,
Xenophobia and Related Intolerance,
which opened Monday in Geneva.
While he paid lip service to human
rights, spoke about the oppressive nature
of Western powers and called for reform
of the U.N. Security Council, the bulk
of his remarks centered on the evils of
Zionism.
Israel was a "most cruel and oppres-
sive, racist regime which was created
from the "pretext of Jewish suffering"
during World War II, Ahmadinejad said.
Upon hearing his opening barbs against
Israel, the French delegation stood up
and walked out. Some 40 diplomats
from more than 20 countries, mostly
Europeans but including Morocco, fol-
lowed suit, as did several nongovern-
mental organizations, including B'nai
B'rith International.

Israel Faults Norway
The Foreign Ministry in
Jerusalem criticized the
Norwegian representative's
decision to sit through
Ahmadinejad's speech.
"We are terribly disap-
pointed in the attitude of
Norway, not only sending its
high ranking representative to the con-
ference, as opposed to countries such
as France and Britain, but he was the
only representative of a Western coun-
try not to have left the room when the
Iranian president started making his
hate speech': ministry spokesman Yigal
Palmor said.
At a press conference in Geneva,
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,
who earlier in the day had met with
Ahmadinejad, slammed his manipula-
tion of the conference to sew incitement.
"I deplore the use of this platform by
the Iranian president to accuse, divide
and even incite. This is the opposite of
what this conference seeks to achieve.
This makes it significantly more difficult
to build constructive solutions to the
very real problem of racism': Ban's state-
ment read.
"It is deeply regrettable that my plea
to look to the future of unity was not
heeded by the Iranian president. At my
earlier meeting with him, I stressed the
importance of the conference to galva-
nize the will of the international com-
munity toward the common cause of the
fight against racism': it continued.
"We must all turn away from such a
message in both form and substance
he said.
Ban also noted that he "reminded the
president that the U.N. General Assembly
had adopted the resolutions to revoke
the equation of Zionism with racism

and to reaffirm the historical facts of the
Holocaust respectively:'
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband
said in a statement that Ahmadinejad's
remarks about Israel were "offensive,
inflammatory and utterly unacceptable."

"That such remarks were made using
the platform of the U.N.'s anti-racism
conference is all the more reprehensible
Miliband said.

Durban II on page A22

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