Day Two of the Durban Review Conference

I have come to realize since arriving in Geneva that my planned experience isn’t matching with my actual experience. To borrow a friend’s term, my E-Gap, or difference between planned and actual experience is both positive and negative. In other words, better than expected and also worse.

I am not blind. I know Israel struggles with the morality of her actions. She is not without fault. I know she is held to a higher standard of action and reaction than other states, whether right or wrong. Regardless, all UN nations are to be treated equally; with no more or less scrutiny. I am confused by the moral hypocrisy of the UN. What separates Israel from basically all is that she is an open democracy with a free press and she is always striving to do better, repair mistakes, and find peace. Who else in the Middle East? No one. Who else in the world? Few.

Today, I sat in on a subcommittee of the UN High Commission on Human Rights. The topic was rights of Indigenous Peoples. The chair is a Mohawk Indian and the panel included an Aboriginal gentleman. The audience was filled with South and Central Americans as well as Africans. From the floor came a comment, "It is sad that the first day of this Conference was so confrontational." They have real work to do and Ahmadinejad's speech and the lead-up takes focus away and derail it. I think this the prevailing feeling. This place has turned into a circus.

The biggest victim of the hijacking of the human rights agenda at the UN isn’t Israel. It is the real human rights needs in countries represented in the subcommittee meeting I sat in on, including Chile, Guatemala, Darfur, Zimbabwe, Iran, and Libya. And of course, Rwanda, almost posthumonously.

So this afternoon the High Committee met for just over an hour and recommended to the PlenarySession that the Conference Declaration be accepted in its draft form submitted Friday WITHOUT ANY CHANGES. It was adopted without objection.

My humble and unworthy comment is the Declaration, like the Conference, is a disappointment and unacceptable. That said, there were improvements to the Declaration, but unworthy of our overall satisfaction. For one, it reaffirms the original Durban Declaration from 2001, which singles out Israel for its human rights violations. Borrowing a term from last week’s Passover seders, “Dayenu.” The list is long and distinguished of worse human rights offenders, but most fill the committee, along with their friends. While Israel is not mentioned directly or indirectly in new document, there is language about prohibition of incitement of hate. Governments are left to interpret “incitement” and “hate.” This will surely allow for restrictions of free speech and free religion. In truth and moving forward, a certain death sentence for more people in the world's oppressive regimes.

Some in my delegation and in partnering delegations are happy with the Declaration. “Better than it could be,” one said. Wrong, friend; unacceptable isn’t on a sliding scale.

Thanks for your time. I hope you’ll return.