(Jewish Group) 20 years ago, the UN Durban Conference aimed to combat racism. It devolved...

[Behind the Aegis]

20 years ago, the UN Durban Conference aimed to combat racism. It devolved into a ‘festival of hate’ against Jews.

Some of the Jewish organizational officials flying into the coastal city of Durban, South Africa, on the last week of August 2001 were excited. They believed the U.N.’s anti-racism conference there would be an opportunity to exchange notes on a cause that the Jewish world had worked on for decades.

Others, steeped in how the United Nations and its affiliates functioned, were wary of some of the players, who were known for tirelessly steering every international conference to complaints about Israel. Still others who had been tracking preparations for the gathering knew that Iran, Israel’s implacable enemy, was planning to take over the proceedings.

But no one was prepared for what it became — a carnival of antisemitic expression that drove Jewish participants to tears each night and had them fearing for their physical safety.

“It was worse than I had imagined,” recalled Irwin Cotler, a longtime Jewish human rights lawyer in Canada who would go on to be his nation’s justice minister. “Because it was a festival of hate.”

As is conventional at U.N. forums, the governmental conference, which ran Sept. 2-9, was preceded by the nongovernmental organization conference Aug. 27-Sept. 2.

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Anti-Semitism, the bigotry that gets a "pass" from all sides!

[nycbos]

1. Indeed

Anti-Semitism is a cause that unites the far left and the far right. The political spectrum is often circular not linear.

[Beastly Boy]

2. Thanks for reminding us where and how all these hateful antisemitic tropes originated and

who is responsible for spreading them.

The people who parrot them ought to pay attention to where they are coming from.

[Mosby]

3. It really was a seminal event.

And sadly the lies promoted during that conference have only grown and become more resistant to exculpation in the global "marketplace of ideas".