AJC Praises U.S. Decision on Durban III Conference

[Ari Gordon <gordona@ajc.org>]

AJC Praises U.S. Decision on Durban III Conference

June 1, 2011 - New York - AJC praised the Obama Administration for its 
decision, announced today, not to participate in the United Nations' upcoming 
Commemoration of the Durban World Conference Against Racism. The conference is 
scheduled to take place in New York in September.

"The U.S. announcement is the clearest indication that this gathering will be 
just as bad for Israel -- and for those truly dedicated to the fight against 
racism -- as were the previous two international conferences in 2001 and 2009," 
said AJC Executive Director David Harris. "To acknowledge the current reality 
is a sad day for the UN and the struggle against racism." 

"Sadly, that struggle, to which AJC has long been committed, has been 
repeatedly hijacked by countries with little actual regard for human rights and 
whose primary goal is to advance highly politicized, anti-Israel agendas," said 
Harris. "We hope that other democratic countries will now follow the laudable 
example of the U.S. and of Canada, which had earlier announced its decision to 
skip the Durban commemoration.

The U.S. decision was revealed in a letter to Congress from Joseph E. Macmanus, 
acting U.S. assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs. The U.S. will 
not participate because the Durban process "included ugly displays of 
intolerance and anti-Semitism," Macmanus wrote.

Earlier this year, AJC appealed to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to ensure 
that "the debacles of the 2001 and 2009 Durban conferences are not repeated in 
2011." The previous two conferences singled out Israel for condemnation and 
prompted the United States to walk out of the first and refuse to participate 
in the second.

>Ari M. Gordon
>Special Advisor 
>Interreligious and Intergroup Relations
>American Jewish Committee
>165 E56th Street
>New York, NY 10022
>(212) 891-6717