Obama's Durban Dilemma

The Obama Administration faces its first truly divisive decision regarding its relationship with Israel and promises for a changed U.S. posture towards the Arab World.

Delegates from the U.S. Department of State attended this week preparatory and planning sessions for the second antiracism Durban Review Conference in April, a forum largely heralded as a platform to condemn Israel. While the United States boycotted the event in 2001 and faces Israeli pressure to reaffirm its opposition to the conference due to the meeting’s explicit anti-Semitic themes, the administration will establish whether to participate in the forum following the plenary events.

The “Zionism is racism” placard, a largely prominent theme in the first Durban conference, stems from a 1975 United Nations resolution opposed by the United States, which cites racial discrimination and parallels Israeli action to apartheid South Africa as the foundations for the anti-Israel claim. Regardless of the retraction of the resolution in the 1990s, the United Nations-sponsored conference in 2001 repeatedly only referenced Israeli actions towards the Palestinians and many participants in plenary sessions intend on reinstating identical rhetoric into Durban II.

Upon the U.S. withdrawal from the conference in 2001, former Secretary of State Colin Powell rationalized opposition to the event citing that “you do not combat racism by conferences that produce declarations containing hateful language, some of which is a throwback to the days of ‘Zionism equals racism’; or supports the idea that we have made too much of the Holocaust; or suggests that apartheid exists in Israel; or that singles out only one country in the world, Israel, for censure and abuse.” Similarly, Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Verhagen stated his country’s reluctance to participate in Durban II due to anti-Israel sentiment and instead declared an intention to “take every opportunity at this time to fight racism and discrimination but we will not be used for a propaganda circus.”

U.S. attendance in the conference and its plenary sessions even evoked Congressional response, with House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Republican Ileanna Ros-Lehtinen introducing a resolution January 9 prohibiting funding or participation of any U.S. officials in Durban conference-related activities.

Moreover, Libya chairs the preparatory committee for the conference with the assistance of co-chairs from other hate-filled regimes, such as Iran and Pakistan. Libya subjugates women and severely limits every First Amendment right including free press, speech, assembly, and religion; Iran consistently declares the need to rid the world of Israel and recently received a U.S. censure for religious prejudice-based judicial proceedings; Pakistan remains plagued by anti-Christian persecution while also engaging in a nuclear-arms race and continued tensions with India based partially on religious differences. These countries hardly espouse moral superiority and unbiased views towards Israel.

The United States faces a choice: either condemn the event and deny the conference a delegation or attend proudly to denounce organizations that inflame global bigotry, including conference sponsors and activists using hypocritical dogma against Israel.

President Obama’s foreign policy thus far focuses on confronting challenges and directly affirming U.S. stances, even at the expense of potentially legitimizing certain regimes. By advocating high-level discussions between the United States and axis-of-evil members Syria and Iran, Obama pursues a direct approach of mutual understanding and, perhaps eventually, agreements based on common interests.

During his first interview as President held with the most widely viewed Arab television network, Obama cited Iran’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, support of terrorism, and threats towards Israel as detrimental to global stability. However, he still declared the need to confront these competing ideologies without shying away from disagreement.

By adhering to the assertive approach for foreign affairs championed by Obama, the United States could attend Durban II, refute false claims, condemn prejudiced assertions, and censure conference planners and participants who falsely infuse their political beliefs into a forum originally aimed at combating xenophobia. This response would mirror the impassioned rebuttal of then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Patrick Moynihan to the initial “Zionism is racism” accusation in 1975.

U.S. attendance at the conference does not mandate through precedent the nation’s participation in every charade masked as an internationally sanctioned event. Due to this forum’s endorsement by the United Nations, to which the United States is the largest contributor, U.S. officials have the increased imperative to address distortions in the global discourse legitimized by the respected international organization.

However, it is unlikely that the United States will receive a unilateral platform to condemn conference bias, some of its prejudiced participants, and the one-dimensional accusations propagated at the event. Regardless, directly refuting the conference to its participants’ faces would undoubtedly introduce additional friction between the Untied States and the Arab and Muslim worlds.

While Obama should encourage State Department officials to proudly stand against racism and biased ideologue-driven rhetoric, reality dictates only one realistic pragmatic approach: refuse to send a delegation to the forum while still condemning the conference from the sidelines in solidarity with Israel to refrain from sabotaging newly formed ties with the Arab world.