News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) Australia's ambassador to the United Nations said Wednesday that his country will continue to support Israel at the international body.

Speaking at Australian National University in Canberra, Robert Hill expressed his government's "very serious concern" about plans currently underway for the second International Conference Against Racism, known as Durban II, expected to take place in 2009. The first conference, held in August, 2001, was a festival of anti-Semitic hatred in which Jewish delegates were threatened, participants celebrated Arab "martyrdom" attacks against Israeli civilians and literature such as Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" were readily on sale.

Hill said the recent change in government from the conservative Liberal Party to the more progressive Labor Party would not affect the country's voting pattern with regard to Israel, and said new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has instructed the UN delegation to vote against or to abstain from most anti-Israel resolutions in the UN General Assembly -– except on issues involving Palestinian refugees.