(Edward Koch-Newsmax).The Durban III Conference is scheduled to be held in New York City on Sept. 21. The two prior Durban conferences — Durban I held in 2001 in Durban, South Africa, and Durban II held in 2009 in Geneva, Switzerland — were supposedly called into session to address racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance.
It instantly became clear that the conferences had been hijacked by Muslim nations for the purpose of trashing Israel and directing hate at Jews everywhere.
The attacks upon Israel and Jews rivaled the worst manifestations of anti-Semitism seen anyplace since Hitler’s Nazi Germany engaged in their campaign to dehumanize Jews leading to the Final Solution and the murder of 6 million Jews.
The false charges against Israel and worldwide Jewry at Durban I and II have undoubtedly caused safety problems for the Jewish citizens of many nations, particularly in the underdeveloped countries of the world seeking the favor of the oil-rich Arab countries.
Durban III undoubtedly will have the same kind of hate-filled rhetoric directed at both Israel and Jews everywhere. Of that I have no doubt. Today, across the world, anti-Semitism is rising in countries such as Great Britain, France, and Russia and increasing in Scandinavia and elsewhere in the European Union as well.
Many of these countries seeking lucrative oil contracts with the Arab countries and fearful of the outcomes of the uprisings that have taken place in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen, but seeking to be seen as supporting those uprisings, are willing to denounce Israel, hoping to avoid confrontation in their own countries with the rising Muslim populations there.
Many of those European countries undoubtedly believe that throwing Israel under the bus is a small price to pay for an accommodation with the Islamic world.
The Muslim Arab countries, having failed on five occasions to defeat Israel on the battlefield, are now seeking to win a diplomatic victory at the U.N. which will deprive Israel of secure and defensible borders, end negotiations between the parties, and impose a Munich-like settlement on Israel.
In addition, through their false accusations and hatred of Jews worthy of Hitler, they will once again at the so-called Durban III Conference on Sept. 21 engage in an exercise of Jew hatred.
The conference will not succeed because the United States, at the direction of President Obama, will not participate in the proposed auto-da-fe.
It will not succeed because countries of conscience such as Canada will not participate.
On June 1, the Obama administration confirmed that the U.S. would boycott the conference. Joseph Macmanus, acting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs, stated that the Durban process “included ugly displays of intolerance and anti-Semitism.”
Jews who came to the land now known as Israel and Palestine with the sojourn of their patriarch and founder, Abraham, have lived there for over 3,000 years. They were carried off into slavery after war with Babylonia in 587 BCE.
Then, the Persian King Cyrus permitted them to return to Jerusalem in 538 BCE. Many were once again carried off into slavery by the Romans in 70 CE, but some Jews always remained in the land. They began their return in large numbers at the urgings of Theodore Herzl, culminating in the declaration of statehood by Ben Gurion who became its first prime minister.
Today, there are living in Israel 5.8 million Jews and 1.6 million Arabs, all full citizens of that democratic state. I have no doubt whether one believes in God or does not, that the people of Israel and the 13 million Jews who live in this world making up one-fifth of one percent of the world’s population will survive this latest attack upon them by their enemies.