Australia Withdraws From UN Durban Conference
In an August 23, 2011, news article, The Australian reports that a “spokesperson for Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Australia had decided not to attend the High Level Meeting on the Durban Declaration and Plan of Action scheduled to be held in New York on September 22.” In a statement, the spokesman said,
We have not been convinced that the High Level Meeting will avoid unbalanced criticism of Israel and the airing of anti-Semitic views. This occurred at the original Durban World Conference on Racism (2001) and the subsequent Review Conference (2009).
As Anne Bayefsky, Senior Editor of Eye on the UN, has repeatedly noted,
The Durban Conference provided rampant antisemitism with a global platform under UN auspices, in a conference allegedly against racism and xenophobia. It also revealed the malevolent antisemitism underlying the campaign to delegitimize the state of Israel.
Canada, in November of 2010, was the first country to boycott the event, with Canadian Minister Jason Kenney stating that “Canada will not participate in this charade. We will not lend our good name to this Durban hate fest. Canada is clearly committed to the fight against racism, but the Durban process commemorates an agenda that actually promotes racism rather than combats it.”
Australia now joins Canada, along with Israel, the United States, the Czech Republic, Italy, and The Netherlands who had previously pulled out of the conference, citing similar concerns.
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