Tired of the negative United Nations focus on Israel, activists are planning a major pro-Israel rally for September 21, when the UN is expected to vote on the Palestinian Authority bid for statehood. At least 15,000 are expected to attend.

The event has drawn support from a number of well-known pro-Israel groups, among them the World Zionist Federation, various Zionist youth groups, and the Jerusalem Institute of Justice (JIJ).

Members of Knesset and ministers will be among those to address the crowd at the rally, dubbed the “Durban III protest.”

“If there is one thing we learned from the summer of 2011 it is that we, the ‘little man,’ can take part in a mass public brainstorm regarding the topics that affect our lives,” said Calev Myers, head of the JIJ.

“We must not remain silent in the face of global hypocrisy,” he continued. The protest will be one that the world “cannot ignore,” he declared.

The UN has demonstrated hypocrisy by making Israel its “punching bag,” said Myers, accusing the Jewish state of everything from genocide to apartheid while at the same time, ignoring blatant human rights violations elsewhere in the Middle East. “There is no response, for instance, to the Syrian blood spilled in the streets. What was their crime? That they dared to protest the trampling of their basic rights,” he stated.

“Our message in protesting opposite the UN will be clear: Stop the obsessive persecution of the only democracy in the Middle East and start fulfilling your mandate – to defend human rights in our region,” Myers concluded.