[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 62 (Monday, April 27, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E976-E977]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   RECOGNIZING THE DURBAN II COUNTERCONFERENCE SPONSORED BY AMERICAN 
     ASSOCIATION OF JEWISH LAWYERS AND JURISTS AND THE JEWISH WEEK

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. CAROLYN B. MALONEY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, April 27, 2009

  Mrs. MALONEY. Madam Speaker, last week we witnessed the deplorable 
spectacle of a United Nations conference purporting to address the 
troubling issue of racism, hijacked by nations with a deplorable record 
on human rights and turned into an all-out attack on Israel. I am proud 
that the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, The Jewish 
Week and other leading organizations in New York City organized a 
counter-conference that really discussed the continued problems of 
racism, racial discrimination, genocide, xenophobia, gender 
discrimination and religious intolerance.
  I was pleased to have been asked to address the conference's opening 
day. Set forth below are my remarks:
  ``I want to thank Robert Weinberg, Marc Landis, the American 
Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists and Jewish Week for giving me 
the opportunity to address you this morning.
  Eight years ago at Durban I, we witnessed a spectacle of anti-
semitism the like of which has not been seen since World War II. There 
are many places you might expect to see anti-semitism--a ku klan klan 
rally, a pogrom, a neo-Nazi gathering. A UN-sponsored World Conference 
on Racism would not have immediately jumped to my mind--until the 
grotesque carnival of hatred we witnessed 8 years ago.
  Of course, the UN had passed the illogical and hateful Zionism is 
Racism resolution in 1975--but they revoked that resolution in 1991 by 
a vote of 111 to 25, 10 years before the conference.
  And yet, the warning signs were present.
  At the pre-Conference it became clear that the full conference would 
be dominated by chants of `Zionism equals racism,' accusations that 
Israel is an apartheid state and other outrageous slanders. Israel and 
the United States walked out--as they should have done.
  The real irony is that anti-semitism, a form of racism, should be so 
prevalent at a conference that was supposed to combat racism.

[[Page E977]]

 The hate literature distributed during the NGO conference included 
caricatures of Jews with hooked noses, surrounded by money, and 
Israelis wearing Nazi emblems.
  At the government conference, states such as Syria and Iran objected 
to the inclusion of Anti-Semitism or the Holocaust in the final report. 
They argued that any reference to the Holocaust would be `favoritism.'
  Anti-semitism is like the canary in the coal mine. It has always come 
before a hatred that spreads through many sectors of society.
  At the first conference Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister sent a 
statement in which he asserted: `antisemitism goes far beyond hatred of 
Jews. It has arisen where Jews have never lived, and survives where 
only Jewish cemeteries remain. And while Jews may be the first to 
suffer from its influence, they have rarely been the last.'
  Instead of learning from history, Durban I and II seek to deny what 
happened, and then to twist its lessons beyond all recognition. Talking 
about an actual example of racism isn't favoritism, it's reality. 
Pretending it didn't happen or isn't important just encourages racists. 
After all, Hitler learned a great lesson from the Turkish attacks on 
the Armenians-- `who remembers the Armenians?' he asked as he prepared 
plans for the final solution.
  If we forget the Holocaust, or hesitate to bring it up, it emboldens 
the murderers. That's why I have been sponsoring a bill--the Simon 
Wiesenthal Holocaust Education Assistance Act to make sure our young 
people learn about the Holocaust and what happened when hatred and 
intolerance was allowed free reign.
  I also authored and passed that Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, which 
opened up long-sealed US government records from World War II, so that 
all of us would know what our government knew about the Holocaust and 
the Nazis who scrambled to hide their past in the aftermath of the war. 
Eight million documents were unclassified as a result. The newly 
unsealed records have been fascinating--they showed that we knew a lot 
about Nazi collaborators who had murdered Jews, and even include a 
report from Hitler's psychiatrist.
  Six months after Durban I, as the world struggled to comprehend the 
terrorist attack on New York on 9/11, which occurred just two days 
after Durban I's closing ceremonies, Deputy Minister Melchior gave a 
speech in which he juxtaposed the two events, and struggled to make 
sense of the senseless. He said: `In an irony of epic proportions, this 
Conference against Racism itself hosted the most racist speeches and 
proposals to be heard in an international forum since the second World 
War. While doing nothing to help the millions of slaves, of 
impoverished and oppressed, this Conference became the mouthpiece for a 
new and venal form of antisemitism.'
  The United Nations can do great work, but Israel often gets 
scapegoated by its many enemies. But as much as the UN can do wrong, 
it's important to remember that it can also do right. Just last year, 
we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of 
Human Rights, the international equivalent of the bill of rights. It 
was the crowning achievement of Eleanor Roosevelt, who chaired the 
committee responsible for drafting it. It was written in the aftermath 
of World War II, as the world struggled to lift itself out of the ashes 
and deal with Hitler's devastation. The world understood what could 
happen when a truly evil man who controlled a vast store of weapons was 
able to give free reign to his desire to conquer and destroy. They 
believed a body that defended human rights would surely prevent such 
evil from rising up in the future.
  Despite the good will of a newly liberated Europe, Eleanor Roosevelt 
had a long and difficult struggle to get the member nations to agree on 
one document. She had to persuade them to put aside their own narrow 
national interests and to agree to a strong affirmation of individual 
rights. It took her three years. When she was done, we had a document 
that affirmed that: `it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to 
have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and 
oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law.'
  Instead of Eleanor Roosevelt, today we have a representative of 
Libya's Muhamar Khadafi chairing the planning committee for Durban II. 
This planning committee includes such noted defenders of human rights 
as Iran and Cuba.
  Human Rights Watch, a leading human rights NGO, pointed out the irony 
of Libya's position by sending a Palestinian, Ashraf Ahmed El-Hojouj, 
to testify before the committee. He was a medical intern who had been 
detained by Libya's government and accused of spreading AIDS, when he 
had been providing medical care. He and five Bulgarian nurses were held 
in dreadful conditions while the international community struggled to 
free them and avert a death sentence.
  Madam Chair,' he said. `I don't know if you recognize me. I am the 
Palestinian medical intern who was scapegoated by your country, Libya, 
in the HIV case in the Benghazi hospital, together with five Bulgarian 
nurses.
  Starting in 1999, as you know, the five nurses and I were falsely 
arrested, prosecuted, imprisoned, brutally tortured, convicted, and 
sentenced to death. All of this, which lasted for nearly a decade, was 
for only one reason: because the Libyan government was looking to 
scapegoat foreigners.
  Madam Chair, if that is not discrimination, then what is?'
  When I began drafting this speech, it was three days before the 
Conference opened, and it still wasn't clear which Western countries 
would be attending Durban II. The U.S., Israel, Italy, Germany, Canada, 
New Zealand, Australia, Poland, Sweden and Holland have stated that 
they won't go.
  Some other EU members have also indicated that they may walk out--
particularly if language to `never forget' the Holocaust is taken out. 
But what does it say that the conference will be opened with an address 
by the notorious Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
  The Bush Administration had been an early opponent of Durban II and 
in December, the U.S. cast a symbolic vote against the UN's budget 
because it included funding for this conference.
  The Obama Administration, in the spirit in which he was elected, made 
an effort to reach out and to try to make the conference's report 
better. They figured that if we weren't at the table, we could be sure 
that we would object to the final document. If we were at the table, we 
had a tiny chance of making it palatable.
  Unfortunately, in a conference chaired by Libya, our odds of success 
were limited. And, it seems clear that our worst expectations have been 
fulfilled. Human rights are being used as a weapon of political 
interests antithetical to human rights protection.
  Was the Obama Administration right to participate in the pre-
conference negotiations? Some would argue that it wasn't worth the 
time, the expense or the frustration. I've always believed that you're 
doomed to fail if you never try. You can always reject a bad bargain--
but you'll never get what you want if you don't ask for it--and you 
can't ask for anything if you storm out at the beginning. So, I believe 
President Obama was right to try change the document in the lead up to 
this conference. And as it became clear that the United States could 
never endorse the final report, he was right to decide not to send a 
delegation to the actual conference.
  I think most of the Western nations were more than a little 
embarrassed by Durban I, and that Europe's enthusiasm for this type of 
spectacle has been tempered by the explosion of terrorism that the 
entire world has experienced since Durban I. I am pleased the United 
States had the company of many other nations in boycotting Durban II.
  Eleanor Roosevelt believed that our greatest asset is the conviction 
that our actions accord with justice and humanity. I am delighted to be 
here at the counter-conference, where justice and humanity can be the 
focus. There is so much work that could be done at a real conference on 
racism--exploring ways to bring justice in Darfur, looking at the 
discrimination against the Baha'i, exploring why the world has 
tolerated a return to clan rule in failed states like Somalia and parts 
of Pakistan, looking at ways to combat xenophobia and intolerance.
  Once upon a time, we dreamed that the United Nations could be a forum 
to address those issues. Perhaps in time it could be--but not when 
states led by the worst abusers of human rights get to chair human 
rights panels, and not when narrow political interests are allowed to 
dominate. I hope, if there ever is a Durban III, it will be convened in 
an earnest effort to achieve equality.''
  Madam Speaker, I ask my distinguished colleagues to join me in 
recognizing AAJLJ and Jewish Week's Durban II Counterconference.

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