After Durban
Secretary of State Colin Powell made a strong public statement as he recalled American representatives from the World Conference Against Racism. Noting the importance of fighting racism, he said, “I know that you do not combat racism by conferences that produce declarations containing hateful language, some of which is a throwback to the days of ‘Zionism equals racism’; or supports the idea that we have made too much of the Holocaust; or suggests that apartheid exists in Israel; or that singles out only one country in the world, Israel, for censure and abuse.”
Secretary of State Colin Powell made a strong public statement as he recalled American representatives from the World Conference Against Racism. Noting the importance of fighting racism, he said, “I know that you do not combat racism by conferences that produce declarations containing hateful language, some of which is a throwback to the days of ‘Zionism equals racism’; or supports the idea that we have made too much of the Holocaust; or suggests that apartheid exists in Israel; or that singles out only one country in the world, Israel, for censure and abuse.”
It was great as far as it went, but we would suggest two extensions of his thought:
1. The venom against Israel is just one weapon in the larger Arab war against the State of Israel, and the U.S. properly refused to be drawn in. However, the ringing defense of Israel in the face of words in Durban should be matched by a ringing defense of Israel in the face of bullets and bombers in Israel. As vicious and nasty as the language of the UN and NGO documents are, they are still words. But the difference between the hatred expressed in words, and hatred expressed by blowing up pizza parlors, killing infants in their parents’ arms, and bludgeoning little boys to death is a difference in degree, not in kind. The State Department needs to support Israel’s determination to deter Palestinian movement from words to deeds and to punish the perpetrators if deterrence fails.
2. The problem wasn’t ONLY the diatribe against Israel. The larger problem is that such conferences by their nature focus on limited manifestations of the evils they claim to abhor. Trans-Atlantic slave trade that ended in the 18th Century was on the docket — present day Arab-African slave trade was not. White against black hatred was on the docket — religious and ethnic hatred propagated in the Islamic world against Christians and Jews was not. Whole parts of the world are engaged in hateful, repressive behaviors that weren’t on the docket. Whole parts of the world are ruled by hateful, repressive leaders who were on the docket — as accusers, when they should have been the accused.
The U.S. has taken on itself an obligation to promote freedom, democracy, and liberty. In the Pledge of Allegiance we call ourselves “one nation, indivisible” because when we were “half slave and half free,” we were fully slave and not free. It wasn’t only the States of the Union that were indivisible — our rights as Americans are indivisible by race as well. We still have work to do, but we are standing on the proper principle: Human rights for any group cannot be promoted while standing on the neck of any other. This is not just about Jews, but about all those ignored by conference organizers who blame the evils of the world on the West and absolve themselves and their cronies.
Secretary Powell said, “I wish that it could have turned out more successfully.” We do too. But, if the United States remains firm in its resolve to defend its principles and its friends, there are successes to be had. If not now, then in the future when other countries realize that what they call