Durban Review Conference, maybe the CPC was right afterall?

[Whoaccio]

When Bernier announced Canada would boycott this, I was a bit disappointed. Given the flaming failure that was Durban 1, I figured the UNHRC wouldn't let the review conference end up as such a boondoggle. Well, I was wrong apparently. Its a shame that such an important topic, racism, is abused so thoroughly by the UNHRC. Its still more of a shame that this undermines the UN as a whole.

GENEVA — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused Israel of being the “most cruel and racist regime,†sparking a walkout Monday by angry Western diplomats at a UN racism conference.

The hardline leader's appearance overshadowed the substance of the weeklong United Nations attempt to stamp out intolerance worldwide. The United States and eight other Western countries, expressing concerns about its fairness, were already boycotting the event.

Protesters dressed with clown wigs and holding placards repeatedly interrupted Mr. Ahmadinejad's speech with shouts of “Shame! shame!†and “Racist! racist!†throwing soft red objects on the podium. Later, about 100 members of mainly pro-Israel and Jewish groups blocked Mr. Ahmadinejad's entrance to a scheduled news conference.

Mr. Ahmadinejad, in a rambling speech, accused Israel of being the “most cruel and racist regime†and pointed the finger at the United States and Europe for helping to establish the country after World War II “under the pretext of Jewish suffering.â€

That prompted a walkout by some 40 diplomats from European countries such as Britain and France, which had threatened to leave the conference if it descended into anti-Semitic or other rhetoric harshly critical of Israel, which marred the UN's last racism gathering.

The boycotting countries expressed concern that Muslim countries would drown out many issues with calls for a denunciation of Israel and a global ban on criticizing aspects of the Islamic faith.

“As soon as he started to address the question of the Jewish people and Israel, we had no reason to stay in the room,†said French Ambassador Jean-Baptiste Mattei.

Speaking directly after Mr. Ahmadinejad, Norway's foreign minister said the Iranian leader's comments “run counter to the very spirit of dignity of the conference.â€

Mr. Ahmadinejad “has made Iran the odd man out,†Jonas Gahr Store said.

Even before his speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad polarized the meeting, which is intended to examine all forms of intolerance around the world.

Israel recalled its ambassador to Switzerland earlier Monday to protest Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz's meeting with Mr. Ahmadinejad late Sunday during which Mr. Merz pressed the case of a jailed American journalist in Tehran.

“The meeting between the president of a democratic country with an infamous Holocaust-denier such as the president of Iran, who calls for Israel's destruction, does not mesh with the values that Switzerland represents and that are supposed to be represented at the UN conference on racism,†the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

President Barack Obama said Sunday that the United States would communicate with Iran about journalist Roxana Saberi through its Swiss intermediaries, which have officially represented U.S. interests in Iran since the American hostage crisis that began in 1979. The Swiss government said it also took up other “unresolved cases†of U.S.-Iranian relations.

Mr. Ahmadinejad's attendance has provoked outrage from Jewish groups and Israel, as he has in the past questioned the Holocaust and called for Israel's destruction.

Its a shame that this probably won't be remembered come election time. I don't know why foreign policy never has much sex appeal when it comes to elections.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Whoaccio:

Its a shame that such an important topic, racism, is abused so thoroughly by the UNHRC.

Is it abused by the UNHRC - or the countries behind it (which has their own ulterior agenda)? I think the walkout only focused more spotlight on the narcissistic Mr. Ahmadinejad than he would otherwise receive.

Hipster:

Personally, I think the government is more concerned about the issues of the Aboriginals coming up.

AoD

 

[Hipster Duck]

We were right not to attend. I hope that if they ever have another one, that all liberal democratic countries, regardless of culture or ethnicity, boycott this. They should just call this the UN Conference on Moral Relativism.

Incidentally, I would feel just as obliged to walk out of a conference on racism that was rabidly pro-Israel.

 

[ShonTron]

Agreed with the above.

Interestingly the flip side, this was rather too much - the recall of the ambassador over something as trivial as meeting Ahmadinejad to seek the release of a journalist.

Israel recalled its ambassador to Switzerland earlier Monday to protest Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz's meeting with Mr. Ahmadinejad late Sunday during which Mr. Merz pressed the case of a jailed American journalist in Tehran.

“The meeting between the president of a democratic country with an infamous Holocaust-denier such as the president of Iran, who calls for Israel's destruction, does not mesh with the values that Switzerland represents and that are supposed to be represented at the UN conference on racism,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

 

[Whoaccio]

Is it abused by the UNHRC - or the countries behind it (which has their own ulterior agenda)? I think the walkout only focused more spotlight on the narcissistic Mr. Ahmadinejad than he would otherwise receive.

Well, to some extent they are one and the same no? The regional quota process for UNHRC membership almost automatically gives the balance of power to OIC states. The remainder, while not formally part of the OIC, are hardly beacons of human rights either. As a result over half of all UNHRC resolutions revolve around Israel as opposed to the rest of the world.

As for Israel withdrawing its ambassador to Switzerland, perhaps a bit much. Given their circumstances I'm not terribly surprised. Some Euro countries maintain a very unsettling post-modernist view of the MidEast. Like Foucault praising the Iranian Ayatollah without understanding what exactly it was about. The ultimate irony would be that Foucault would eventually die of AIDS related illness, I can only suspect what Khomeini would have thought of that.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Whoaccio:

Not quite - considering the original intent wasn't for UNHRC to get turned into a circus. If those countries think that UN resolutions are the way to deal with racism - I think they are in la-la land. Quite frankly, they are more or less undermining one avenue where legitimate claims of racism can be expressed on an international forum. Besides, they should look at their own record on human rights before being too eager to blame others for their failings.

AoD

 

[kEiThZ]

I am glad that the western countries walked out and exposed this sham for what it is. This is exactly why we should be skeptical about empowering international institutions like the UN any further. As long as countries like Canada have the same (or less) moral authority as say Syria or Iran at these institutions there is no use in us participating.

While criticism of Israel is legitimate, dumbing down a conflict with many complex issues to being racist on one side is particularly galling. Where's the criticism about the official anti-semitic policies of virtually every Arab country in the Middle East?

I hope lefties at home and around the world give their heads a shake and start creating real forums (sans representation from truly racist and repressive regimes) to tackle these issues. They can start by talking about a conflict that has far more racist undercurrents: Darfur.

 

[Brian69]

Durban was a disaster and letting someone who has called for Israel's destruction be the keynote speaker just reduces the conference to a farce once again. Surely the UNHCR could have seen this coming and planned accordingly. Israel has issues but compared with the rest of the region (and certain nations such as Zimbabwe) they don't deserve to be singled out.

Quite frankly, the UN has been a great idea whose reach has often exceeded its grasp. It is a bloated bureaucracy that does enough to keep itself relevant but not enough to really change the world in the way it was intended--hardly surprising given the different political and economic agendas each nation has. The rest comes down to human nature and the way we segregate ourselves in geographic enclaves. This is why, to answer the original question, I don't think foreign policy has "sex appeal" because we, like pretty much every other nation out there, are more focused on what affects our own quality of life, and we're not too interested in shaking things up unless we are directly endangered either economically or militarily. But flawed as the Western democracies are I'll take their viewpoint and lack of faith in the "system" over some of the tinpot dictatorships out there who try to influence the UN.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Keithz:

I am glad that the western countries walked out and exposed this sham for what it is. This is exactly why we should be skeptical about empowering international institutions like the UN any further. As long as countries like Canada have the same (or less) moral authority as say Syria or Iran at these institutions there is no use in us participating.

Except that Canada would be just as unhappy when it is at the receiving end of criticisms - like on the issue of indigenous rights. The fact of the matter is - few if any nations have any willingness to surrender any degree of sovereignity to anyone. Like - how would a UN that is funded through international taxation, can act independently to uphold gross human rights violations sit with say, the US, Canada...let's not even talk about pariah states like Iran or North Korea. Besides, we all know in the grand scheme of things it's really the UN Security Council that matters - GA and other apparatus are for all intents and purposes carrots.

I hope lefties at home and around the world give their heads a shake and start creating real forums (sans representation from truly racist and repressive regimes) to tackle these issues. They can start by talking about a conflict that has far more racist undercurrents: Darfur.

Then I better hope the righties at home will pony up the dough one way or another and get ready to settle for some sort of supranational governance.

AoD

 

[kEiThZ]

While I wouldn't suggest that the Conservatives have been paragons of sound foreign policy, I think some credit is due here.

Article from the G&M for discussion:

PUBLICATION: GLOBE AND MAIL
IDN: 091110153
DATE: 2009.04.21
PAGE: A17 (ILLUS)
BYLINE: NORMAN SPECTOR
SECTION: Comment Column
EDITION: Metro
DATELINE:
WORDS: 814
WORD COUNT: 814

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When President and PM are on the same page

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NORMAN SPECTOR nspector@globeandmail.com Whether it is Cuba or the United Nations racism summit in Geneva that crash-landed on takeoff yesterday, Stephen Harper and Barack Obama increasingly find themselves on the same page. That this is so can be attributed to bold leadership on the parts of both the Prime Minister and the President. Whether it will continue will depend on how others respond and on domestic political constraints.

Mostly, however, it will depend on whether the two leaders continue to pursue pragmatic, non-ideological solutions to the great problems they face.

On the Cuban front, the leadership came from Mr. Obama. That America's Cuban policy has been a failure is a self-evident truth for Canadians, but we should not diminish the importance of his baby steps toward a more rational policy - for they have been a long time coming.

Asked what he would have done had he been in office at the time of the Cuban revolution, former U.S. president Harry Truman said he would have invited Fidel Castro to Washington for a visit and told him there were only two sources for the assistance he would need: the United States or Russia.

Of course, whether Mr. Obama will be able to go further in unfreezing the relationship will depend on Cuba's response. It will also depend on the arithmetic of domestic politics that has confounded generations of U.S. leaders. On Fox News Sunday , Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, was particularly pugnacious: "Release the prisoners and we'll talk to you," he said, adding, "Put up or shut up." Interestingly, Mr. Harper was able to give the U.S. President a hand with his domestic critics on the very same television network, which caters to a right-wing audience. Presenting himself as an "anti-Communist conservative," he said: "If the objective is to see change in Cuba, it's hard to see how a trade embargo would do anything other than keep the economic system closed." As for the UN racism conference, it was Mr. Harper who showed leadership, and we are not talking baby steps. When Canada announced early last year that it would not attend the Geneva meeting - a follow-up to the first such UN conference in Durban eight years ago - it was ahead of even Israel in drawing a line in the sand.

Nevertheless, Mr. Harper's decision, far from being seen as principled, produced the usual hair-pulling by former Canadian diplomats and their echo chambers in the media about a supposed pro-Israel tilt in Canada's Mideast policy.

On one point, however, Mr. Harper's critics were right: The decision to boycott the Geneva meeting marked a significant departure from the Liberal government's decision to attend the Durban meeting in 2001. Moreover, when that conference turned into an anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hate-fest, U.S. representatives walked out along with the Israelis - Canada's delegates stayed put.

It was the decision of the Geneva organizers to incorporate the Durban document in their proceedings that tipped the balance for the U.S. delegation, with Washington announcing Saturday that it would boycott the conference. Once the Americans had followed in Canada's footsteps, other countries followed. And yesterday, most Western ambassadors walked out of the opening session, when Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took to the podium and accused Israel of being the "most cruel and racist regime." With Mr. Obama backing his position, Mr. Harper may now be given credit for having led the way, rather than being attacked as a pro-Israel shill.

However, it is far from certain that he and Mr. Obama will remain on the same page where the Mideast is concerned. Much depends on whether Hamas and the Palestinian Authority can reach an accommodation and endorse a two-state solution. The onus would then shift to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Watch for him to insist on one of the states being defined as the state of the Jewish people, but watch also for him to be very pragmatic when the time comes.

If I'm wrong about Mr. Netanyahu, no one should be surprised if Mr. Obama ends up applying pressure to bring about a two-state solution.

A U.S. president who is prepared to stare down the Cuban-American lobby would certainly be prepared to confront the pro-Israel lobby.

And here's where life could get interesting for Mr. Harper. Better than most, he understands that at the root of the Mideast conflict is the unwillingness of many Arabs to accept the Jewish people exercising sovereignty in any part of the region. What's not as certain is whether Mr. Harper recognizes that some of the Jewish groups he's been courting domestically are no more prepared to accommodate a Palestinian state - in whatever borders that might involve.