America slides into the sewer

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3362491/america-slides-into-the-sewer.thtml

America slides into the sewer
Bt Melanie Phillips

16th February 2009

While American Jews and many Israelis still have their heads stuck firmly in the sand about Obama, there is huge and growing concern in more informed Israeli governmental circles that Israel faces the most unfriendly or even hostile President that anyone can recall -- and this at a time when the drums of Iranian genocide are beating ever more loudly. Such concern has been deepened by his decision at the weekend to ‘help plan’ the 'Durban 2' UN conference.

This event, which I wrote about recently here, is a re-run of the UN’s anti-Jew hate-fest that was held a few days before 9/11under the grotesque misnomer of a human rights conference. 'Durban 2', due to take place next April in Geneva, looks set to be even worse. Its first draft declaration singled out Israel for the usual delegitimisation and libels which are a stock in trade of the Islamist world and now, alas, much of the western intelligentsia marching under the inverted 'human rights' banner which is a fig-leaf for Jew-hatred. It says the Palestinians are the victims of Israeli oppression, implies that Zionism itself is racism, and calls for the end of Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem and (as in Durban I) for the ‘right of return’ for Palestinians, which would mean the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state.

Now its revised draft declaration says that Israel’s law of return – which merely gives all Jews the right to live in Israel – is racist, which is a way of reviving the discredited and disgusting ‘Zionism is racism’ UN trope; it embraces Holocaust denial by proposing to delete any reference to the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust on the grounds that the number is ‘questionable’; it creates a hierarchy of victims with Muslims on top and the ‘intellectual and ideological validation of Islamophobia’ deemed to be the ‘most disturbing phenomenon’ – this when Jews around the world are being subjected to an upsurge in anti-Jew hatred and violence, including many attacks by Muslims.

To prove what a farce this is, and how lethal, the chief ‘anti-racism’ negotiator at Durban 2 is Iran, which is dominating proceedings – Iran, which denies the Holocaust, intends to carry out a second nuclear one against Israel and then destroy the rest of the free world.

Israel, the Netherlands and Canada have already said they will have nothing to do with this grotesque inversion of human rights. Until now, Britain and America have been wringing their hands while saying ‘wait and see’ – as too has the UK’s spineless Jewish community leadership, which thinks that by continuing to ‘engage’ with the 'Durban 2' planning process it may sanitise the conference of its worst aspects. The revised draft declaration is its answer.

The key point is -- as the UN watcher Anne Bayefsky tirelessly tells us -- that it is impossible to sanitise' Durban 2' because its whole purpose is to reaffirm and implement the Declaration produced by Durban One. This Declaration asserts that Palestinians are victims of Israeli racism. So participation in this process legitimises the mantra of Israeli racism.

Now Obama has stopped wringing America’s hands and is plunging them instead deep into the sewer. By taking part in the planning of 'Durban 2', the American President is legitimising a process which is intrinsically anti-Jew and anti-west. As Bayefsky writes:

In truth, this Obama trip to the U.N. represents an abandonment of Israel. All his campaign promises to the contrary, sacrificing Israel for the sake of currying favor with others — demagogues included — is clearly at the top of the new president’s agenda. Israel asked Obama not to attend. Canada also pulled out of Durban II and expected American support. Instead, today’s American foreign policy leaves America’s closest ally and its biggest trading partner out in the cold.

So much for Obama’s undertakings to America’s Jews. Last November, the Jewish Chronicle reported:

Advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have assured Jewish leaders that the United States will not take part in the so-called Durban II conference, the JC has learned. The now-notorious 2001 Durban Conference became a forum for extreme anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism. A senior executive from an international Jewish body said he had been told: ‘President Obama is fully aware of the dangers of participating in this conference.’

When will America’s Jews become fully aware of the dangers of President Obama?