ZGram - 11/2/2001 - "Damage Control and Spin-doctoring :) "

[Ingrid Rimland]

Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

November 2, 2001

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

Fredrick Toben, Director of the Australian-based revisionist
Website/Adelaide Institute, calls Jeremy Jones "Australia's leading Zionist
racist veteran politician".

In 1996, Jones initiated legal proceedings against the Adelaide Institute
website under  Australia's Racial Hatred Act, which Australia's Zionists
were instrumental in  formulating and enacting into law.   Jones is known
as being particularly ruthless and nasty in using "human rights" principles
as cudgels to deprive politically incorrect opponents of their human
rights.

Jones was an Australian delegate to the UN World Conference Against Racism,
and  represented the World Jewish Congress at the NGO forum.  Below you
will find a first-hand account of what it felt like to be on the receiving
end of wholesale rage and fury in Durban, South Africa.

[START]

Durban  Daze:  When  antisemitism becomes 'anti-racism'

 By Jeremy  Jones

  Face-off:        Jewish activists besieged by anti-Israel    protesters

  The week Big Brothermade  its debut on South African television, an event
with far more Orwellian  overtones took place in the Indian Ocean port city
of Durban. The UN World  Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination,
Xenophobia and Related  Intolerance (WCAR), preceded by an international
conference of Non-Government  Organisations (NGOs) on the same theme,
provided eye-openers, not only on racism  but on the moral bankruptcy of
many so-called human rights organisations and the  cynicism which dictates
the course of so much of international  relations.

     For Australians,  particularly Jewish Australians, the two conferences
had the redeeming feature  of reinforcing just how lucky we are to live in
an open, democratic society  which, for all its blemishes, treats
international human rights  seriously.

     The two main conferences  were preceded by a Youth Summit, which in a
sense set the scene for the  following two weeks. Delegates were given free
T-shirts that bore the official  logo of the conference and a slogan
identifying Israel as an evil regime that  should be dismantled
immediately.

     Youth Summit delegates,  or more correctly the tiny minority of Youth
Summit delegates allowed to have  any say in the proceedings, rejected a
proposal to support peace in the Middle  East and Jewish students found
themselves the targets of derision, insult and  abuse. Non-Jewish members
of the Australian contingent which participated in  this conference told me
repeatedly of their concern at the way in which the  conference organisers
had bullied, cajoled and even threatened any individuals  who suggested
that democracy had a place at the conference (or  elsewhere).

     The early registrants at  the NGO Forum were given a booklet of
"political" cartoons which included some  of the most obscene antisemitic
stereotypes ever printed, including one which  pictured a caricature of a
Jew which a large hooked nose, claws and fangs  dripping blood. All around
Kingsmead Stadium posters and banners comparing  Israel to Nazi Germany and
to Apartheid South Africa were prominently  displayed.

   A large number of NGO  delegates came from countries where there are no
organisations able to legally  function unless they do the government s
dirty work and these were supplemented  by large and visible media
contingents from countries that treat freedoms with  complete contempt.

   During the opening  ceremony, the conference chairperson railed against
Israel but did not find time  to refer to many, many victims of racism who
had thought that this conference  would provide a platform. On the first
afternoon, as the business of the Forum  commenced, parallel session after
parallel session provided podiums for extreme  anti-Israel propaganda,
pointedly provided at the expense of any meaningful  consideration of many
different experiences by victims of racism.

   The session on Hate  Crimes not only had a speaker whose thesis was that
Israel s existence is a  "hate crime", but witnessed the shocking scene of
a person asking a question  regarding the procedure during the session
being greeted with shouts of "Jew,  Jew, Jew, Jew" and another questioner,
a woman with a South African accent,  being heckled with the abuse "Israeli
dog".

     By the second day of the  Forum, participants were reporting that the
notorious antisemitic forgery "The  Protocols of the Elders of Zion" was
being sold in the exhibition tent, set up  for the distribution of
anti-racist materials. Regular reports of anti-Jewish  intimidation,
including assault, were streaming into the Jewish caucus and to  the
conference organisers, with the latter unwilling to take any  action.

   After months of wrangling in the  lead up to the conference, members of
the Jewish caucus had secured the  inclusion of a formal session on
antisemitism, but by the third day of the  conference, when it was
scheduled to take place, there were genuine concerns for  the safety of
participants. When the session began it was clear that a large  number of
people present had come not to discuss antisemitism but to make sure  that
the Jewish caucus felt intimidated. It is probably worth noting at this
point that one of the few rules under which the conference seemed to
operate was  that victims of a particular form of racism were not to have
their telling of  their own experience altered by outsiders. This procedure
meant that any  individual could stand up and personally lie, without fear
of contradiction   a  method used in much of the anti-Israel
propagandising.

     In the session on  antisemitism it became clear that those who had
benefited from this policy  elsewhere were planning on doing their utmost
to overturn it should Jewish  people not simply cave in to overt
intimidation. After a series of papers given  by experts from the US,
Canada, Uruguay, Europe and Australia it became  noticeable that the crowd
at the only large entrance to the meeting tent was  growing in its number
and aggression. When the final resource person, a student  leader from
Israel, was speaking, the crowd started moving towards the area  where most
of the Jewish participants were sitting, yelling and threatening.  Their
hate, whipped up by individuals whose name tags identified them as coming
from South Africa, Iran, Palestine and the US, was undisguised and
virtually  tactile. After the intervention of a few brave souls, including
one prominent  African National Congress figure, enough calm was restored
for the meeting to  reconvene, although the only way this could happen was
through the formation of  smaller working groups.

   Throughout these first  three days there were a series of instances
where a small group of Jewish  students distributing material critical of
the anti-Israel maximalism were  confronted by a large group of noisy and
aggressive protesters. Police had to  intervene on a number of occasions
and it is telling that, as all photographs  and film footage reveal, all
the offensive and threatening behaviour came from  the anti-Israel side in
the "confrontations".

   In response to the  hostility, which resulted in many of the Jewish
delegates hiding their name tags  and even to some of the kippa-wearing
male delegates wearing caps out of fear,  the Jewish caucus convened a
media conference, inside the media tent, as this  was regarded as the least
likely place in which Jewish delegates would be  physically attacked.
However, before the opening statements could be completed,  a group of
shouting, jeering, fist-waving, shoving demonstrators, including a  number
wearing media badges, forced the abandonment of what had been hoped would
be a rare opportunity for Jewish voices to be heard.

     The situation had  deteriorated to such a degree that a workshop that
comprised a formal part of  the program, on the subject of Holocaust
Denial, had to be cancelled on security  advice.

     While all this was going  on, a group of Hamas supporters were
parading about the conference centre and  its environs with three members
of the eccentric Jewish sect Neturei Karta, who  purport to be the only
"authentic" Jews and espouse the view that Israel s  existence is a sin.
Their commitment to Judaism was well illustrated by their  decision to
demonstrate against Israel, carrying placards, on the Sabbath, while  the
Jews they describe as "unauthentic" were attending synagogue services. The
fact that these street performers found no problem with the distribution of
the  "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" or doing the dirty work for
organisations  which speak not only of their dream of destroying Israel but
also of subjugating  Jews was unfortunately of no interest to the media
throng excited by the  prospect of "dissident" Jews.

  Not too dissimilar in  their actions during the conference were a number
of "anti-Zionist" Jews, from  Israel and South Africa, who also seemed to
have no problem with the overt  antisemitism, as long as they were still
given a platform at the conference to  give their views on why Israel
should cease to exist.

   Given the conduct of the  conference, it was hardly surprising that the
final documents produced, as an  alleged summary of the consensus views of
the Forum, should be approved and  adopted in a manner reflecting the
corruption, dishonesty and racism of the  conference organisers,
supplemented by the cynicism and immoral pragmatism of  conference
participants. It was hardly out of step with the way the conference  had
proceeded that the final Declaration was not adopted until many NGO
participants had left Durban. To her credit, UN Commissioner for Human
Rights,  Mary Robinson, refused to participate in a ceremony to accept the
forum outcome  documents.

     One of the saddest  outcomes of the behaviour by the organisers and
anti-Israel/antisemitic bully  brigade was that many issues of real concern
received very little airing, if  any. Many fine human rights activists and
brave spokespeople for victims of  racism had come to the Forum in the hope
that others would learn of some of  their pain and work towards alleviating
contemporary racism and the scars  inflicted by previous practices of
racism. The Dalits, the lowest rung on the  caste ladder in India, were
probably the only group which made itself heard  above the intensive
propagandising of the anti-Israel lobby.

   There were no "winners"  in the NGO Forum. The organisers were
responsible for a corrupt process and  breaking their own rules as the days
went on, which set the stage for what many  have described as the most
antisemitic international event in the post-war  period.

     The anti-Israel  campaigners may have achieved an insertion of hateful
language in the final  documents but lost an enormous amount of credibility
through their bullying and  inability to respond to the arguments of a
small and ill-prepared group of  Jewish activists. The tirade of
antisemitism which so much of the so-called  human rights community either
promoted or tolerated is of great concern to Jews  and to all who genuinely
oppose racism. Victims of racism around the world lost  after their forum
was so crudely hijacked by the most fanatic of single issue  propagandists.


   About the only people who  left the conference with their dignity intact
were the members of the Eastern  and Central European caucus who showed a
genuine concern for all victims of  racism while lambasting the dishonesty
and outrageous behaviour which marked so  much of the Forum.


Inside a  racist 'anti-racism' conference

      As the NGO Forum was concluding,  the UN conference was opening. With
official delegations from over 150  countries, the formal atmosphere and
the leadership from the secretariat was far  different from that which
prevailed in the NGO Forum, but the tension remained  high.

   The Conference convened  with only working drafts of the Declaration and
Program of Action, which meant  that a great deal of work had to be done at
the conference itself. The issue of  the participation by Israel and the US
figured prominently in the minds of  delegates, as did the issue of the way
in which slavery and other "past" issues  could be settled in any consensus
manner.

     The opening speeches were  marked with appeals, desperate appeals, for
participants to not waste time  throwing invective at Israel or other
parties, but to concentrate on producing a  blueprint for combating racism.
Nevertheless, formal speeches at the plenary by  member states of the
Organisation of the Islamic Conference and their  totalitarian allies were
replete with hate-filled anti-Israel invective.  Leaflets on the desk where
delegates collected their daily program included some  referring to
"Nazi-Israel Apartheid" but these paled into irrelevancy when  compared to
the formal speeches by some of the designated representatives of  national
governments.

   Two positive highlights  of the plenary session were the dignified and
thoughtful paper delivered by the  Israeli representative Mordechai Yedid
and the intervention by Australia in  response to the Declaration of the
NGO Forum. In the latter situation  Australia s Ambassador to the UN, John
Dauth, used his Right-of-Reply (a  procedure used only sparingly during the
conference) to point out that the  Declaration was unacceptable and a
discredit to all identified with it, due to  sections which were
"deplorable".

     While speech after speech  took place in the plenary hall, national
delegations were going through hundreds  of paragraphs in the Declaration
and the Program of Action, attempting to reach  consensus on every
sentence, word and punctuation mark. After a short time it  became clear
that Australia, Canada, the European Union, most Latin American and  some
Asian and African countries, were working to produce rational, positive and
forward looking documents, while the Arab League, the other nations in the
Organisation of the Islamic Conference, Cuba and a number of Caribbean and
African states seemed hell bent on using the conference purely as a
platform for  promoting propaganda at the expense of any serious work
against  racism.

   As if the work in these  sessions was not demanding and exhausting
enough, slabs of paragraphs relating  to the Middle East (and related
subjects such as antisemitism, Islamophobia and  the Holocaust), the Past
(slavery, colonialism and the like) or those containing  lists of victims
or grounds of victimisation were referred to small groups of  designated
states.

Lone hand:  Jewish activists were grossly outnumbered by their
antagonists

      The decision of Israel and the US  to attend, at the very last
moment, reminded serious delegations that the  credibility of the
Conference depended on it sticking to its aims, rather than  being
distracted or redirected by those who had come, as they were happy to tell
anyone who would listen, to ensure that the Nazi Holocaust was not
mentioned in  the Conference documents, antisemitism was either excluded or
had its meaning  maliciously twisted and for Israel to be identified as the
only country in this  world which deserved to be singled out for alleged
"racism".

   At the half way point of  the Conference, the US and Israel determined
that the fight against racism was  best served if they were to leave. One
will never know if their timing was  optimal, if it would have been better
if they had never arrived or if the  process would have been expedited had
they stayed. What can be said is that,  after they left, the democratic
nations of the world with Australia, the  European Union and Canada in the
lead, were steadfast in their refusal to allow  the Holocaust to be
denigrated, "antisemitism" to be twisted and contorted by  antisemites or
Israel to be treated as a pariah.

     At the time the  Conference was scheduled to end, nothing approaching
final documentation had  achieved agreement. As the Conference clock ticked
into overtime, agreement was  reached on the way in which the Conference
would describe the victims of racism,  the grounds for racism, the legacy
of past practices such as slavery and  colonialism and, well after all had
seemed lost, an unhappy compromise regarding  the Middle East was achieved.


     In the matters which were  not so contentious it is worth placing on
record the leading, constructive role  played by Australia, with experts
from Canberra being responsible for some of  the more logical, progressive
and achievable aims in fields such as education,  potential for NGOs to
participate in decision-making and in international  cooperation against
trans-national racist activity.

   The outcome of the  Conference was such that countries such as Israel
and Australia were able to  make it a far more successful exercise than
seemed possible in the days, weeks  and months leading to it. Although the
Organisation of the Islamic Conference  and their allies had been defeated
in just about every one of their assaults on  common decency, logic and
truth, they still managed to distract attention from  the many and numerous
human rights abuses which they commit or promote. They  also achieved an
unhelpful mention of the Israel-Arab issue in documents on  racism and even
a pair of offensive paragraphs, which one can only hope are not  allowed to
undermine progress towards peace.

   In the Government Forum,  Australia can hold its head high as a
supporter of the highest democratic  principles and for its willingness to
often say things which needed to be said  but which other countries may
have chosen to leave alone. The European Union,  Canada, Guatemala, Brazil
and a number of other countries which may not have  been as vocal but were
similarly guided by a commitment to combat racism also  showed dignity and
strength.

     The host country, South  Africa, was, to say the least, schizophrenic.
Some of the South African  delegates were part of that core working to try
to achieve something valuable  >from the Conference while others seemed
more attracted to the pseudo-Marxist  rhetoric of the one-party
dictatorships.

     It is not possible at  this point to assess whether the Conference
will prove valuable or will have  damaged the struggle against racism or,
for that matter, resulted in something  between these two poles but we can
say that, if they surprise us all and indulge  in some honest
self-reflection, the anti-Israel claque will admit that they  were, most
deservedly, humiliated as a consequence of their disingenuousness and
transparent dishonesty.

[END]

=====

Thought for the Day:

"(Sharon) waxed poetic this week about his longing for the days of the
paratroopers back then, when chop-chop, they'd finish things off over the
border. But those days are gone. And even if, heaven forbid, there are more
major terror attacks, from now on, Sharon will have to restrain himself.

"Even he, who believes he can spit in the face of the President of the
United States, knows there are limits to Bush's readiness to regard it as
just a spot of rain. "

(In today's Ha'aretz at
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=89982&contrassID=2&subCo
ntrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y&itemNo=89425 )