Monday 20 April, 2009

World
Middle East

by Charles Gardner

The Durban Review Conference, held in Geneva under the auspices of the United Nations supposedly to stamp out international racism, has had an entirely predictable, if somewhat dramatic, outcome with anti-Semitism once again raising its ugly head.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prompted a rare UN walk-out when he called Israel a “cruel and repressive racist regime” in his remarks to the conference, a sequel to that first held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, just days before the 9/11 attacks.

I remember the occasion well as I was in Durban at the time following a visit to my father and recall how ashamed I was that such an anti-Semitic UN –sponsored conference had been held in the city, and country, I love and of which I was so proud following the relatively peaceful emergence of the new South Africa.

Instead of fighting racial discrimination, Durban only fuelled and fed it. The Crusaders (America) and the Zionists (Israel) were charged with racism, slavery and colonialism. And I remember making what seemed an obvious connection as I watched, incredulously, the collapse of the Twin Towers just days later through Islamic fundamentalists who hated Americans and Jews.

A war on terror ensued, but the terror had been directed against Jews (and Christians). That surely equates to a war against racism – against Islamic fundamentalists – while at the same time the UN sponsors a conference to fight racism from entirely the opposite point of view where the victims become the aggressors. It’s a bizarre topsy-turvy Alice in Wonderland world.

And the Mad Hatter, Ahmadinejad, who wants Israel “wiped off the map” and has cast doubt on the Nazi holocaust, tells the conference (according to the official translation): “Following World War II they (Israel) resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering. And they sent migrants from Europe, the United States and other parts of the world in order to establish a totally racist government in the occupied Palestine.

“And in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine.”

With the charges against Israel following the initial Durban conference, no mention was made of the genocide in Rwanda or Iraq or the gassing of the Kurds; no condemnation was levied against Iran’s use of children as mine-sweepers during the Iran-Iraq War; nor was there a mention of the repressive regime in Saudi Arabia where Christians face imprisonment or worse and where Jews are banned.

America and Israel left the proceedings in South Africa in protest while conference-goers took to the streets to parade vile posters portraying Jews with fangs dripping blood.

Mike Evans of the Jerusalem Prayer Team, which exists to stand for Israel, said before the Geneva conference convened: “The leaders of the countries which will participate in the Durban Review Conference are bigots and truly believe the diabolical lies quoted by Hitler from Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. This is the reason mosques and mullahs are allowed to teach that Jews are descendants of monkeys and pigs; that all wars are caused by the Jews; that they invented AIDS; and that Zionists attacked America on 9/11 and blamed the Arabs.

”It is believed there is a Jewish conspiracy to rule the world, and that the Jews control the media and banks. America thought she was exempt from terror until 9/11 and still resists acknowledging that she was attacked for being a Christian nation.”

Western world, wake up!