Speaking as the RHR representative who actually witnessed what went on in Durban first hand, and wasn’t spoon fed by reports in the western media, I am happy to have this opportunity to tell everyone here that the 2001 conference was not “hijacked by anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli parties.” True, among the many thousands of activists, there were some rather off-color expressions of anger against Israel, Zionism and the West in general, but nothing that justified the walk-out initiated by the U.S. and joined by American Jewish establishment organizations (or vis versa).

The general feeling there was that the U.S. and pro-Israeli government bodies, realizing that this would be forum that would demand reparations for the exploitation of Africa (centuries of slavery, etc.) and the Palestinian loss of homeland, decided out of naked self-interest to blacken the name of the entire enterprise and muffle opposition, in the name of fairness, as if this were the UN Security Council where the U.S. can cast yet one more veto; no, this was more like the UN General Assembly, where on these issues, the vote is 125-3 (U.S., Israel and Micronesia).

I hope very much that by the time this second follow-up conference comes around, the coalition between a right-wing American administration that hasn’t the slightest commitment to human rights, and right-wing American Jewish organizations whose concern about human rights in the Middle East only reaches as far as Darfur will be a painful but faint memory, and that RHR will rejoin the global human rights community, and clearly state its loyalty to the human family and not to ANY government.

Recent Articles by Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom

• Ki-Teze: Human Rights and not remaining indifferent - September 12th, 2008
• Eqev: Include all of humanity in Human Rights projects - August 21st, 2008
• Pinehas: Human Rights and the rejoining the human family - July 18th, 2008
• Huqqat: Human Rights, Blemished Leadership and the Moral Sphere - July 3rd, 2008
• BeMidbar: Human Rights and The Triumph of God's Hope - May 30th, 2008
• Emor: Promise, Justice, Non-violence, and Peace - May 7th, 2008
• Durban 1: What really happened at the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance - March 3rd, 2008
• Shemot: Channeling our passions - December 29th, 2007
• Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom - December 13th, 2007
• Vayyiggash: Equality and economic justice - December 13th, 2007
• Bedouin Rights - September 1st, 2006

Categories: Jeremy Milgrom, Perspectives
Tags: Bo, Durban, Emor, fairness, human rights, ISM, palestinians, reparation, rest, settlers