Israel, U.S. to coordinate on boycott of Durban II conference

Israel and the U.S. decided a few weeks ago to boycott the Durban II conference scheduled for early 2009 and likely to harshly criticize Israel's human rights record unless they receive firm guarantees that the event will not turn into anti-Israel festival.

According to a senior government official, the joint decision was made after discussions among senior U.S. State Department and local Foreign Ministry officials, and after being raised in talks between Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Israel and the U.S. decided to make their participation in the conference conditional on guarantees the event would not become a rerun of the previous United Nations rights conference in Durban in 2001.

"The burden of proof will be on the UN and the organizers," a Jerusalem source stated.

The September 2001 conference in Durban, South Africa had been slated to deal with racism and xenophobia, sponsored by South Africa, the UN Human Rights Commission and the UN non-aligned states a body dominated by Arab states.

The conference was attended by official government delegations, as well as non-government organizations who dictated a hard anti-Israel and anti-Semitic line.

The attacks on Israel included accusations of apartheid, that Zionism is racism, and that the Holocaust is not a unique event but similar to other events in history.

Delegates also said Israel was "born in sin," the result of ethnic cleansing of Arabs and that in the present, it is committing genocide against Palestinians. More