Appeal to all United Nations Member States:

Citing historic concerns regarding antisemitism, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States and Uruguay have announced that they will not attend the UN’s Durban Conference anniversary later this year. I welcome these announcements and call on all other countries to follow. 

The Durban process, since its inception at the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, has included ugly displays of intolerance and antisemitism. 

The lead-up to the Durban Conference produced one of the most scurrilous documents relating to Israel and the Jewish people to appear since World War II. The Asian regional preparatory meeting in Tehran accused the Jewish state of committing “a new kind of apartheid,” “a crime against humanity” and “a form of genocide.” 

The Durban Conference itself, held between 31 August to 7 September 2001, was marred by language singling out Israel in the final text of the Durban Declaration, and in the plenary. PLO chairman Yasser Arafat told conference delegates of the “ugliness” of “Israeli racist policies and practices against the Palestinian people.” Cuban dictator Fidel Castro spoke of “the dreadful genocide perpetrated, at this very moment, against our Palestinian brothers.” 

At the parallel NGO Forum, non-governmental organizations declared Israel a “racist apartheid state” that was guilty of “genocide.” At a nearby Palestinian-led march with thousands of participants, placards read “Hitler Should Have Finished the Job.” On sale in the exhibition area was the most notorious of anti-Jewish tracts, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” The Arab Lawyers Union distributed antisemitic cartoons reminiscent of the Nazi era.  

Two decades later, we are now witness to a worldwide surge of anti-Jewish violence and inflammatory language that demonizes the Jewish state as uniquely evil, recapitulating the 2001 Tehran accusations of “genocide” and “apartheid.” This was recognized two months ago by the European Commission Coordinator on Combating Antisemitism, Katharina von Schnurbein, when she condemned attacks and anti-Israel graffiti on synagogues and Jewish premises. 

In 2011, numerous countries withdrew from the UN’s 10-year commemoration of the Durban Conference, including Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. 

Likewise, in December 2020, Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, and the United States voted against the resolution establishing the upcoming 20-year commemoration of the Durban Conference, because they did not want to see the hateful and antisemitic displays of the 2001 Durban Conference commemorated. Accordingly, I urge all UN member states not to legitimize this event.

I am profoundly committed to ending racism and racial discrimination, and to upholding human rights for all. Outside of the tainted Durban process, all nations of goodwill must continue to work in partnership to combat racism, bigotry, and racial discrimination in all forms and all places.