The International Conference against Racism: Why is Israeli Running Away?

The International Conference against Racism: Why is Israeli Running Away?

Michael Warschawki

In May 2009, the second UN Conference on Racism will be held in Geneva. Like most other UN conferences, there will be a conference of NGOs parallel to that of the states. Israel has decided to boycott the conference and convinced the United States, Canada and several other countries to do the same.

One can easily understand the Israeli/US reluctance to attend the NGO event: global civil society is profoundly anti-racist and has no difficulty identifying the racist laws and institutionalized mechanisms of the Israeli state. This is especially true in two fields: land and planning, and residency rights. Like in the previous 2001 NGO conference, held in Durban, South Africa, Israeli racism will be one of the main topics of discussion, together with other states that support widespread discrimination.

But why does Israel also insist on boycotting the state conference? The answer is found in the recent Gaza massacre. According to Israeli media, the Israeli Foreign Ministry reported that the January 2009 Israeli attack on Gaza are perceived by many governments as an unacceptable and line-crossing action by a government, especially that of a Member State of the United Nations. This would likely bring Israel under sharp criticism in the state conference as well.

Israel is not the first member state in the UN that has violated the UN Charter and committed war crimes. However, unlike other states, Israel enjoys huge privileges—diplomatic, economic and military—which are dependant on the good will (and interests!) of the international community, namely the United States. The most important of these privileges has been its overall status of impunity. That impunity however depends only on the decision of the main, large international powers to relate to the Jewish State as such. Many of these states cannot be totally indifferent to their own public opinions, and that public opinion is today, full of anger against the State of Israel.

The decision of the Chief Prosecutor of the Hague International Tribunal to "study the Israeli deeds in Gaza" is far from an official charge, but nevertheless a new and important message to Israel that says: there is a limit to our silence and complicity, and you have exceeded that limit.

This is why we are hearing requests from the Israeli Ministry of Justice to open inquiries against soldiers and officers of whom there are strong suspicions of war crimes. By opening its own legal procedures, the Israeli leaders hope to escape international judicial involvement. But it very well may be too late.

Our main duty in the upcoming conference in Geneva is to gain consensus on and mobilize the international demand for Israeli leadership’s accountability on the various human rights and international law violations. These include the attacks in Gaza and also the activities in the West Bank and Israel itself. Structural discrimination against citizens on the basis of ethnicity, religion, and/or national belonging is a relevant issue for an international conference on racism, isn’t it?

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Posted by JNOUBIYEH at 3:08 PM