Is Obama right to skip U.N. Rights Conference? Two views

Yes: Don’t dignify such silly displays of bigotry and lies

By ARI MORGENSTERN

In September of 2001, the United Nations convened the “World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.” First held in the late 1970s and focused on South African apartheid, WCAR events eventually devolved into Orwellian U.N. creations that prop up the very thing they were intended to tear down.

At that now infamous 2001 conference in Durban, South Africa, many delegates ignored pressing issues of intolerance, such as the growing threat of Islamic extremism, and instead focused their efforts on demonizing Israel. Three days after it concluded, terrorists acting in the name of Islam struck U.S. citizens.

The “Durban Review Conference,” Durban II, convenes in Geneva next week. The planning committee is lead by Libya and boasts Iran and Pakistan amongst its membership. Even with the decision to drop the blatantly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel language from the conference’s draft declaration, it appears that Durban II will be no different from its predecessor. President Obama is right to have withdrawn U.S. participation.

During the conference, many observers will express outrage over what takes place there. I will not. It’s not that I don’t find the prospect of equating the Jewish state with Nazis repulsive, or that I don’t find it ludicrous when despots like Hugo Chávez attack America’s human rights record — both now common occurrences at U.N. events.

Rather, I simply do not believe that U.N. declarations have any impact anymore. Because Durban II will mimic the U.N.’s modern intolerance, it will also mimic the world body’s modern ineffectiveness. And it is ultimately that futility that is the great tragedy.

The U.N. was born as a conscientious reaction to a horrific world war and genocide. Yet, decades after its inception, the world body did too little and was too late in its response to genocide in Rwanda and Sudan. Its leaders shout loudest when condemning the West for its reaction to the Islamic imperialist onslaught — consistently ignoring the atrocities of tyrants and the cries of their victims.

Rather than spending Western money to put on yet another anti-Western display, perhaps the world’s oppressed would be better served if the U.N. took this opportunity to deal intolerance a blow by shaming, rather than accommodating, the world’s despots.

Nearly two years after their widely publicized nonviolent protests, the people of Burma remain under the boot of dictatorship. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blithely asserts that the Holocaust never happened, while threatening Israel with another. In schools across the Islamic world, children are taught that non-Muslims should not be afforded even basic rights. And in Darfur, genocide continues.

In its charter, the U.N.’s founders set out basic principles: “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” The issue is not that the world body has failed to achieve that goal: World peace will remain a work in progress. Rather, the true frustration is that the modern U.N. seems to be ignoring its intended purpose.

As a result, when it really counts, when the exploited and the oppressed desperately need the free world to fulfill the promise of “Never Again,” we fail, miserably.

• Ari Morgenstern is an Atlanta- based media relations consultant.

No: Don’t endorse arrogant attitudes of America’s past

By MARLENE NADLE

There is irony in America’s first black president continuing to boycott the U.N.’s international conference on racism.

President Obama’s position on attending the conference translates roughly into: Do it our way or we won’t play. Even if the administration bullies other nations into getting its way, it is not really a win for the U.S.

Obama’s foot-dragging and threat of a boycott will begin to deplete whatever good will he has created for himself and America among nations of color. People in those countries, like many Americans, hoped he would head up the fight for racial justice, not become one of the obstacles to it.

The president’s decision to boycott will undercut his attempt in Turkey to reach out to the Muslim world. It has been widely reported that the boycott was urged by the conservative wing of the American Jewish community and by the hawks in Israel.

If he continues to cave to that pressure, it will be seen in the Muslim world as more proof that America always takes Israel’s side and cannot be counted on as an honest broker in any peace process. Despite the harm his threat of a boycott is doing, his administration continues its power play. A State Department spokesman said the United States would re-engage in the conference only if its draft document meets U.S. criteria. The main remaining objection is to a section reaffirming the declaration of the 2001 U.N. conference on racism. That 2001 declaration contains statements that conservative American Jews consider hostile.

Obama seems to be adopting a policy of killing the messenger rather than dealing with the message. He is reacting to the symptoms, not the cause. It’s a narrow, ineffective response to Arab and world anger at Israel, some of it ugly, some of it anti-Semitic, but much of it rage over legitimate grievances. By limiting people’s right to speak their feelings and be heard, Obama will have neutered the conference even if the U.S. finally participates in it.

Whatever Obama’s final decision, some members of the Congressional Black Caucus are planning to attend the conference. Meanwhile, they are trying to persuade the administration to participate. In a meeting with State Department officials, the caucus asked the obvious question: Why not just reject the parts of the document Obama cannot support, and go to the conference anyway? It is standard U.N. procedure to place a reservation on a particular paragraph of a document and then endorse the rest. He is also being pressured to go by a Call-Obama campaign carried on by progressives, including some American Jews.

State officials are still divided between those clustered with U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, who wants to attend, and those with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who does not because of promises made to the Jewish community. Obama has not publicly taken sides.

The chilling effect on the good will toward the United States will only grow with Obama’s continued silence and reluctance to commit to attending the conference. Hopefully, he is smart enough and brave enough to reverse the boycott before it does more damage to America and his administration.

• Marlene Nadle, a foreign affairs journalist, is an associate of the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies at New School University.