PA continued anti-Israel theme at Durban
PA continued anti-Israel theme at DurbanIsrael News Photo

Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki charged in Geneva Tuesday that "the Israeli occupation is the ugly face of racism” and added that Israel commits “severe violations of human rights.

His comments at the Durban II “anti-racism” conference came one day after Human Rights Watch charged the PA’s Fatah security forces with human rights violations.

 

Confirming fears of the Western world that Durban II participants would use the conference as platform to attack Israel, Maliki added, “It is our obligation to stop the suffering of the Palestinian nation which must deal with a racist occupying nation.”

 

He spoke a day after Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also called Israel racist in his speech at the conference. It was revealed on Tuesday that he omitted in his speech prepared statements that included the phrase “the ambiguous and dubious question of the Holocaust.” During the actual speech, Ahmadinejad labeled Israel the “most cruel and racist regime.”

 

Simultaneously, a Durban II Counter-Conference sponsored by the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, and co-sponsored by more than 20 organizations, is being held in New York through Friday.

 

The counter-conference "will address the real issues of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance which the Durban I and Durban II were officially convened to address.” The association stated, “As happened at Durban I, the Durban II proceedings in Geneva will likely ignore, distort, or misrepresent these issues.”

  

The annual March of the Living from Auschwitz to the Birkenau Nazi death camp marking Holocaust Remembrance Day took place Tuesday afternoon. The Israeli delegation was headed by Minister for Regional Development Silvan Shalom and Yad VaShem Chairman Rabbi Meir Lau.

 

"Today's Iran is like Hitler's Germany," Minister Shalom said.

 

In Israel, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon exploited his speech at Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day to take credit for a partial boycott of Durban II. "The fact that many nations did not participate in the Durban Conference which gave center stage to a Holocaust-denier is a success of the Foreign Ministry,” he stated. “It is important for all of us to remember that every member of the Foreign Ministry around the world represents the six million that were murdered who in their death bequeathed to us the State of Israel.”

 

France, which unlike Germany, Holland and Italy attended Durban II, ridiculed the U.S. for boycotting it. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner criticized the U.S. on Tuesday for boycotting the United Nations conference on racism but joined the walkout of delegates after Ahmadinejad’s anti-Israel comments. He later returned to the meeting.