Simon Wiesenthal Center Urges U.S. to Boycott U.N. Durban IV Conference

"Durban’s irredeemable hate agenda should be permanently buried not praised

The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) is urging the US, Canada and other democracies to boycott the 20th Anniversary Conference celebrating the ill-fated UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban South Africa.

'Durban I degenerated into the worst anti-Semitic hatefest since the end of World War II,' declared Rabbi Abraham Cooper, SWC Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action for the leading Jewish Human Rights NGO, who served as a spokesman for Jewish groups attending the 2001 gathering in South Africa. The Wiesenthal Center is an NGO at the United Nations.

'Durban was an unmitigated disaster where Israel was cast as a racist apartheid state and Jewish delegates, including myself and my SWC colleague, Dr. Shimon Samuels, International Relations Director, were verbally and physically attacked,' Cooper added.

'The new UN call to fully implement the Durban Declaration will provide extreme anti-peace and reconciliation with additional global platforms to demonize the Jewish State and supporters of Zionism. The impact of a new sustained campaign demonizing the world’s largest Jewish Community (Israel) and Jews around the world already reeling from a surge of anti-Jewish hatred, would be devastating.

'We therefore urge US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to withhold any US participation in this fatally flawed process. We hope other democracies will do the same. Durban’s irredeemable hate agenda should be permanently buried, not praised,' Rabbi Cooper concluded."