The coming week will be heavy with 9/11 commemorations, which for many New Yorkers still feels like yesterday.
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which → come → yesterday
But this week, I’ll also be remembering another event that also feels like yesterday: thousands chanting “Free, Free, Palestine!,” “Jew, Jew, Jew!,” and “Israel commits genocide!”
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Israel → remember → genocide
No, I don’t mean Columbia University in 2024.
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I → mean → 2024
I mean the UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa in 2001.
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I → mean → 2001
This now-infamous UN event, 25 years ago this week, was ideologically hijacked by a group of autocratic nations called the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which commandeered the proceedings to focus exclusively on Israel — thereby averting the world’s eyes from their own crimes.
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which → hijack → crimes
The Hitler-themed posters that blanketed the UN conference in Durban were funded by the family of Osama bin Laden.
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that → theme → Laden
The clown show began in early 2001, when Iran, hosting the Asia region’s pre-planning conference in Tehran, barred Israeli officials and Jewish groups from attending.
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Iran → begin → officials
At their blissfully Jew-free conference, delegates from authoritarian states drafted a UN declaration naming only one country — Israel — as a racist human-rights violator.
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delegates → draft → violator
The OIC included regimes whose ideas of tolerance ranged from legalizing child rape to gassing civilians with chemical weapons.
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ideas → include → weapons
These states were delighted to sign on.
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states → delight → ?
Later in Geneva, the OIC proposed language for the main UN declaration about Israel committing “genocide.”
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Israel → propose → genocide
“If the OIC delegates could turn Israel into the new apartheid South Africa — the world’s sole racist regime — the broad agenda of the WCAR [World Conference against Racism] could be overthrown,” he later wrote.
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he → turn → Racism
Lantos saw that the OIC regimes’ plan was precisely to destroy the meaning of human rights.
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plan → see → rights
To UN human-rights commissioner Mary Robinson, Lantos argued that “allowing these same forces to appropriate terms like ‘ethnic cleansing,’ ‘genocide,’ and ’crimes against humanity’ to describe Israel’s behavior would forever debase their meaning.”
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forces → argue → meaning
That is exactly what happened, except much worse.
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That → happen → happened
In Durban, 20,000 protesters swarmed the conference venues, chanting “Free, free Palestine!” and carrying a banner reading “Hitler was Right.”
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Hitler → swarm → banner
Inside, delegates distributed copies of the century-old antisemitic screed “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and cartoons of bloody-fanged Jews.
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delegates → distribute → Jews
Ubiquitous posters featured Hitler’s face over the text “What if I had won? There would be NO Israel.”
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I → feature → text
The wall-to-wall Jew-hate silenced dissent, literally.
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hate → silence → dissent
At one point, Jewish groups organized an emergency press conference to publicize the hatred.
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groups → organize → hatred
There, one delegate recalled, a “phalanx of Iranian women in black” rushed the podium to prevent them from speaking.
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phalanx → recall → them
By then, conference security advised Jewish delegates not to walk the few blocks to Durban’s Jewish community center; it was too dangerous.
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it → advise → center
When the NGO conference forum voted on its official Declaration and Action Plan, Jewish groups attempted to add language about antisemitic violence.
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groups → vote → violence
With precious few exceptions, 3,600 NGOs all voted to delete it.
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NGOs → vote → it
After that, surrounded by jeering crowds, the Jewish delegates walked out — quickly, with bodyguards.
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delegates → surround → bodyguards
In the seventy-page Declaration voted and approved by those 3,600 NGOs, only one country on earth was named.
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country → vote → earth
In a victory for regimes worldwide actually engaging in racist, colonial, apartheid, genocidal rule — and a defeat for millions suffering under their reign — no other countries were even mentioned.
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countries → engage → reign
Al Qaeda, equally unworthy of mention, waited in the wings.
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Qaeda → wait → wings
To its credit, the American delegation walked out of this clown show.
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delegation → walk → show
“I have taken this decision with regret, because of the importance of the international fight against racism and the contribution the conference could have made to it,” US Secretary of State Colin Powell said as he announced the walkout, but “I am convinced that will not be possible.”
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that → take → walkout
Words like “racism,” “antisemitism” and “genocide” were rendered meaningless, which was the goal.
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which → render → racism
These words were now shiny things dictators wore on their lapels, distracting everyone from the populations they tortured back home.
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they → wear → populations
The world’s premier human-rights organizations, whose courage once brought down the world’s worst tyrants, had now all bowed down to tyrants, and flushed their credibility down the toilet.
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courage → bring → toilet
This left the UN and human-rights advocates worldwide emptied of words and meaning when the conference triumphantly ended — four days before Sept. 11, 2001.
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conference → leave → Sept.
I still can’t believe they all fell for it.
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they → believe → it
Twenty-five years later, too many still do.
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many → do → ?
Dara Horn is the author of “The Final Solution to the Jewish Question: A Love Story for the Living” (Avid Reader Press) from which this essay is adapted.
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essay → live → which
