Western leaders have reacted with anger and scorn to remarks by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the United Nations conference on racism on Monday, which were interrupted by protestors dressed as clowns and by delegates storming out in protest of his harsh criticism of Israel.
The U.N. Durban Review Conference is being held in Geneva, Switzerland, to review the implementation of the Durban Declaration of Programme of Action from the World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001. That conference was boycotted by the United States and other Western nations to protest the summit being used as a platform to criticize Israel. A draft text of the Declaration equated Zionism with racism, although this language was removed from the final text voted on at the conference by attending delegates.
The U.N. has been at the center of controversy about Zionism being equated with racism before. In 1975, the U.N. General Assembly voted to pass Resolution 3379 determining that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination”, which was revoked in 1991 by Resolution 46/86 under pressure from Israel’s main benefactor, the U.S.
Then U.S. President George H. W. Bush addressed the Assembly, saying that the “Zionism is racism” resolution mocked the pledge of U.N. members to practice tolerance and live as peaceful neighbors, but making no mention of the plight of the people living under Israel’s discriminatory, violent, and oppressive policies in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories.
Bush called for the resolution’s repeal by asserting that Zionism is an idea, not a policy, “And to equate Zionism with the intolerable sin of racism is to twist history and forget the terrible plight of Jews in World War II and, indeed, throughout history. To equate Zionism with racism is to reject Israel itself, a member of good standing of the United Nations.”
In fact, Israel’s discriminatory and criminal policies have repeatedly been condemned by the United Nations in Security Council resolutions, which reflect standards of internationa law that Israel has perpetually been in violation of.
The Obama administration had announced that it would similarly boycott “Durban II”, as the Review Conference has been called, on the grounds that the Conference would be used as a platform for criticizing Israel, a key historical U.S. ally in the Middle East. The State Department also protested the inclusion in the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action of language urging countries to act against “incitement to racial hatred”, saying that it runs “counter to the US commitment to unfettered free speech.”
President Ahmadinejad was the only head of state who accepted a United Nations invitation to participate in the Conference. A number of other nations, including Canada, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and Italy, joined the U.S. in boycotting the Conference. France announced that it would attend, but would walk out if Israel fell under criticism in the Iranian President’s scheduled speech.
Ahmadinejad opened his speech with a prayer for peace and justice, but was immediately interrupted by French Jewish students dressed in clown wigs and noses, who called the Iranian head of state a racist. The protestors were removed, but his speech was interrupted again when delegates stormed out in protest when he criticized world powers for establishing “a racist government in the occupied Palestine”.
Contrary to popular myth that the U.N. created Israel, the state was founded in May 1948 when Zionist leaders unilaterally announced its existence. The Zionist program, which involved the displacement of many native Arab inhabitants of Palestine as European Jews immigrated to the region, received the blessing of Britain, the U.S., and other Western powers which adopted a policy of explicit rejection of the right of the Arab majority of Palestine to self-determination.
Israel’s founding was also accompanied by the ethnic cleansing of its Arab inhabitants, resulting in the large Palestinian refugee population that still exists today. In 1967, Israel took over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, creating more refugees and beginning an illegal occupation marked by discrimination and violence that continues to this day with support from the U.S. and other Western powers.
Despite Israel’s history of racist policies towards Arab Palestinians, many Western leaders reacted with scorn to Ahmadinejad’s criticism of Israel and nations which support its criminal policies.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband condemned his speech as “offensive, inflammatory and utterly unacceptable”, saying it contained “hate-filled rhetoric” and was “an intolerable abuse of free speech”.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy called it “an intolerable call to racist hate”.
The U.S. Deputy Ambassador to the U.N. Alejandro Wolff characterized it as a “vile and hateful speech.” He added that “It shows disregard for the organization to which he is speaking, the United Nations”.
In his speech, Ahmadinejad also criticized the discriminatory nature of the United Nations itself and called for reform in international institutions to a more democratic standard, including the rejection of the veto power wielded by the members of the Security Council, whose permanent members are the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, and China.
U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon responded by issuing a statement deploring the speech, accusing the Iranian President of using the platform “to accuse, divide and even incite.”
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted hysterically to the speech, saying “We will not allow the Holocaust deniers to carry out another Holocaust against the Jewish people.”
It is virtually obligatory in Western media propaganda to include in articles on the Iranian president that he has denied that the Holocaust occurred and seeks the destruction of Israel. The former claim comes from remarks Ahmadinejad made in which he observed that the Arab Palestinians should not be made to pay the price for the crimes of Nazi Germany. The latter claim stems mostly from a statement in which the Iranian head of state spoke about the necessity to replace oppressive regimes. He cited the Shah’s Iran, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and Israel as examples.
Israeli leaders have repeatedly called for a military attack against Iran in order to punish it for continuing to enrich uranium for its nuclear program. Consecutive U.S. administrations, along with Israel and other U.S. allies, have accused Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, despite the fact that the U.S.’s own intelligence community has assessed that Iran today has no nuclear weapons program and reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, that repeatedly reaffirm that there is no evidence such a program exists. Credible analysts have also observed that it would probably be necessary for Iran to kick out IAEA inspectors who are in the country monitoring and verifying the peaceful nature of its nuclear program before it could expand the program for military purposes.
Ahmadinejad’s remarks were not so poorly received by everyone. He was applauded on occasion during his speech, and Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations Zamir Akram commented on the controversy over Ahmadinejad’s speech by saying “If we actually believe in freedom of expression, then he has the right to say what he wants to say.”
During the speech, the Iranian leader also condemned Israel’s three-week military assault on Gaza that began in December and resulted in hundreds of civilian deaths.
He also criticized the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, saying that such actions were intended only to “expand their sphere of influence” and “plunder energy resources” and were clear examples of “egocentrism, racism, discrimination” and “infringement upon the dignity and independence of nations”.
In addition, he blamed the U.S. and Western powers for the global financial crisis, asserting that their financial policies exist “in defiance to all moral values only to protect the interests of the owners of wealth and power”, evidenced by the injection of “hundreds of billions of cash from the pockets of their own people into the failing banks, companies, and financial institutions”. The power elite “are simply thinking about maintaining power and wealth”, Ahmadinejad charged. “They couldn’t care any less about the people of the world and even about their own people.”
Well written article Jeremy. I think people in the West love to misunderstand Iran and its leaders. Ahmedinijad is no exception. While I condemn Israeli aggression and blatant violation in occupied territories, what I can’t understand is the Iranian duplicity on issues like Afghan invasion and Iraq war. They were the ones who welcomed American plans to invade both the countries and overthrow regimes hostile towards Tehran. Iranian leadership offered cooperation to the American while invasion plans were chalked out. Yet they condemn the aggression and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. Sheer hypocrisy!
The absence of Western countries from the anti-racism summit shows how shortsighted they’re when it comes to support their so-called ‘allies’. I can’t think of any better synonym for Zionism than racism.
I’m not sure it’s fair to say they welcomed both wars. No doubt, they saw certain advantages in it. They had always opposed the Taliban, and their enmity for Saddam Hussein goes without saying. But that does not necessarily mean they supported the U.S. bombing Afghanistan or invading Iraq.
As for Zionism, not all early Zionists were racists. But the leaders who really decided what the Zionist project would be made sure that it was inherently racist. The West adopted this racist framework (actually, you could say the Zionists adopted the racist framework from the West, and the whole colonialist/empiralist assumption that white European types should rule the world and basically regarded everyone else as cheap labor), explicitly rejecting the right of the Arab majority to self-determination.
But there is with certainty no doubt that what is going on in Palestine and ‘Israel’ is a mess.
Everyone talks about a free world and so called “liberation”. But as soon as you “belive” in something different then man made laws – then you are labeld as an extremist and fundamentalist.
Religion is a personal and a free choice. If one belives it, one should have the freedom of following it. If a country wishes to impose devine rulings – then its their decision.
Why is everyone so bothered with other countries internal matters!
How can a country bomb its neighboring country (mostly women and children) and then just get away with it!. Zionist or none-zionist. We are talking about human beings who have been mistreaded and psychologically tortured for that past 50 years. Women raped, children shot in the head. Yet no reaction but labeled as self defence.
Well if you occupy a country and obviously people will react to oppression!
The leaders and the people are forgetting the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 which clearly states:
– Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict!
– Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force!
The boycott and walk-out of 29 countries out of 187 member countries of UN, show who are for the world peace and who are puppets of powerful Jewish Lobby. The leadership of these countries are hypocrites themselves while preaching “freedom of speech” to other countries – especially the Muslim world.
Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitism – because there could be millions of Muslim and Christian Arabs who could claim to be Semites while we all know that the great majority of Jews are neither Semite people (they’re Asian Khazar Turks) nor practicing Jews. In fact most leaders of Zionist movement have been committed atheists and quite hateful towards Jews.
Iran has not attacked neither of its neighbours for the last 100 year while Zionist entity has invaded almost every one of its neighbours during the last 60 years. Tehran did not invite US to attack Afghanistan or Iraq. Contrary to Pakistan, Iran refused to give the US its airspace for attacking Afghanistan. Now, Israel pushing Washington to enlarge its war front – extending it to Iran and Pakistan.
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/vampires-eying-pakistan/
The article states that the UN did not create Israel — which is true but entirely misleading. It TRIED to divide what was left of the Palestine Mandate Territory between Jewish and Arab states, facing intense opposition from Arab states and the UK. The Arabs said no way. With British backing, they began a low intensity war against Jewish residents. The Jews only then unilaterally declared the independence of Israel. Arab states then invaded, ordering Arab residents to leave to facilitate the massacre of all Jews that they promised publicly and repeatedly to carry out, and which they did carry out wherever possible. The harshly enforced Arab demand – now ‘forgotten’ – is certainly why *most* of the Arabs who left did so. The Nation magazine (yes, that one) sent the UN a memorandum documenting Britain’s role in attempting to sabotage the creation of Israel and aiding the pre-invasion Arab terror. It can be read at http://emperor.vwh.net/history/br.htm
The article states that the UN did not create Israel — which is true but entirely misleading.
How is stating the fact that the U.N. did not create Israel “entirely misleading”? What is entirely misleading is the commonly asserted falsehood that the U.N. created Israel. That is absolutely false.
“With British backing, they began a low intensity war against Jewish residents.”
Nonsense. British actions against Jews were directed against Jewish terrorist activities, such as the bombing of the King David hotel and similar atrocities, many of which targeted the British as well as the Arabs. To suggest the British backed Arab attacks against Jewish residents is just nonsense. The British certainly played a deplorable role in the whole episode, but this was not a part of it.
“Arab states then invaded, ordering Arab residents to leave…. The harshly enforced Arab demand – now ‘forgotten’ – is certainly why *most* of the Arabs who left did so.”
Another falsehood. On the first part of this statement, Jews owned approximately 7% of the entire territory of Palestine, and yet unilaterally declared for themselves, well, pretty much all of it (the unilateral declaration of the existence of the state of Israel contained nothing defining the borders of the declared state). Saying Arabs then “invaded” assumes Israel somehow had a right to simply annex all of this land that did not belong to them. Most of the fighting did not take place on land belonging to Jews, but on land belonging to the Arabs. You also omit the fact that the Zionists terrorized the Arabs, and it was the massacre at Deir Yassin and the deliberate ethnic cleansing of Palestine that resulted in the Arabs fleeing. That is non-controversial, and well acknowledged among Israelis and well documented by Israelis like Shlomo Ben-Ami and Benny Morris and Ilan Pappe, etc.
The latter part of this is simply a fabrication. You’ll find no documentary evidence supporting the claim that Arab armies ordered inhabitants to leave. This is a historical fabrication.
“The Nation magazine (yes, that one) sent the UN a memorandum documenting Britain’s role in attempting to sabotage the creation of Israel and aiding the pre-invasion Arab terror.”
Correction: The Nation magazine sent a memo claiming Britain did a number of things. It’s utter rubbish. Take the claim that the British had the goal in mind of a federal state. Complete nonsense, as the documentary record shows unambiguously this solution was repeatedly and consistently rejected by the British from A to Z. Other claims therein are similarly nonsensical, like that the British conspired with the Arabs to plan the Arab revolt — which was then violently suppressed by the British, and in which far more Arabs were killed than Jews. It’s just asinine nonsense.