Canadian senator initiates Durban II counter-conference 

By Rhonda Spivak 
February 28, 2008
Haartez
Original Source: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/958879.html



OTTAWA - As the United Nations prepares for a follow-up meeting next year to its 2001 World Conference Against Racism, a Canadian senator has proposed a counter-conference of human rights activists to combat anti-Semitism. 

Participants and observers at the 2001 conference, held in Durban, South Africa, were shocked at the extreme anti-Semitic rhetoric there. The event - dubbed Durban I - was officially titled the UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. 

The idea is that wherever Durban II will be, there will be a one-day counter-conference that focuses on anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, racism, and anti-religious persecution, says Jerry Grafstein, the senator who initiated the proposal. 

The alternative conference will serve as a corrective to Durban II, says Grafstein, who fears that next year's UN conference is likely to reprise the anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism of the 2001 meeting. 

U.S. congressman Alcee Hastings of Florida has agreed to join Grafstein as head of an organizing committee for the counter-conference. 

There is particularly strong support in Germany, England, and Spain among parliamentarians who are not Jewish, Grafstein adds.