Petition Tag - "

The 2009 Durban Review Conference has been billed as a continuation of the 2001 United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance previously held in Durban, South Africa.

The 2001 Conference failed to meet its stated objectives of addressing issues of international racism, xenophobia, and intolerance, mutating instead into a tribunal which demonized Israel, calling her a perpetrator of racism and intolerance in the Middle East.

The 2001 World Conference Against Racism Draft Declaration equated Zionism with racism, and charged that Israel’s so-called occupation of Palestine was racially motivated and therefore relevant to the Conference agenda.

A working draft of the 2009 Conference Declaration espouses similar anti-Israel rhetoric, stating in part that: a homeland for Jewish people and Israel’s law of return is racially based; Israel is guilty of apartheid; and that the historical accuracy of the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust is subject to debate.

The George W. Bush administration made it a policy not to participate in the Review Conference or its associated preparations, and repeatedly voted against U.N. resolutions supporting or funding the Conference.

View petition