Livni with UN Chief Ban Ki-moon (Archives)
Photo: AFP
Israel boycotting UN racism conference
Livni says scheduled World Conference Against Racism in Geneva will be biased against Israel and aim to delegitimize Jewish state. 'Documents prepared for event indicate it is turning once again into an anti-Israeli tribunal,' she adds
Israel will boycott a United Nations conference on racism next year, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Wednesday, charging it would be biased against Israel and aim to delegitimize the Jewish state.
The next World Conference Against Racism is scheduled to take place next April in Geneva, Switzerland.
The US and Israel walked out midway through the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, because of a draft resolution that singled out Israel for criticism and compared Zionism – the movement to establish and maintain a Jewish state – to racism. The resolution was not approved.
Conference
Associated Press
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Livni said the 2009 gathering would be a repeat performance.
"The documents prepared for the (upcoming) conference indicate that it is turning once again into an anti-Israeli tribunal, singling out and delegitimizing the state of Israel, which has nothing to do with fighting racism," she said at a conference of North American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. "In view of this situation, I decided that Israel will not participate."
Jewish participants at the 2001 Durban conference said they had been silenced and threatened by pro-Arab activists.
Livni called on the international community to stay away from the 2009 conference, which she said "seeks to legitimize hatred and extremism under the banner of the fight against racism." No comment from the organizers was immediately available.
Last August, Itzhak Levanon, Israel's UN envoy in Geneva, said the conference would need to be completely reworked for Israel to participate. With Libya chairing preparations, and Iran and Cuba also involved, Levanon said it had the making of another international "bashing of Israel."
The US has not yet decided whether to take part, but used a vote in the UN General Assembly last year to protest the conference.
Canada has said it will not take participate, charging that the meeting would promote racism and not combat it.
