The Durban demarche 

February 17, 2009
Melanie Phillips
The Spectator
Original Source: http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3366311/the-durban-demarche.thtml

I wrote below about the dismaying decision by the Obama administration to participate in the planning of ‘Durban 2’, the looming repeat of the UN anti-Jew hate-fest masquerading grotesquely as a human rights conference that took place in Durban a few days before 9/11, and whose singling out of Israel for vilification is likely to be exceeded in both the depth and scope of such defamatory incitement by the anti-west, anti-Israel and anti-Jew Declaration being prepared for ‘Durban 2’ in Geneva in a couple of months’ time.
By deciding to take part in its planning process in the professed hope that it can mitigate its most obnoxious elements, the American government has bestowed upon it a legitimacy that this intrinsically wicked meeting most certainly does not merit. America’s involvement also runs the risk that if they are smart – and they are – the Iranians and other enemies of the west who are running this UN ‘human rights’ circus will simply remove one or two of the most egregious canards from the Declaration, thus enabling Obama to grand-stand as a global reformer while doing nothing to stop the UN producing a Declaration which will still be viscerally anti-west, anti-Israel and anti-Jew.
At today’s London Conference on Combating Antisemitism, which has been highlighting the shocking connection between the misreporting of Israel’s military action in Gaza and the global pandemic of Jew-hatred, the Foreign Office minister Lord Malloch-Brown – himself a former UN official – made a very careful statement about Britain’s involvement in this process. Unlike Canada and the Netherlands, Britain is still – shamefully -- ‘engaging’ with ‘Durban 2’ on the similarly absurd grounds that it might ameliorate it. Today, Malloch-Brown – who said he had been horrified by Durban 1 -- said that Italy was ‘close to withdrawing’ and that Britain had come very close to doing so. But Britain was ‘not there yet’, and would co-ordinate very closely with the Obama administration in trying to get a good deal out of 'Durban 2'. The British government was very clear, he said, that it would be intolerable if one country, Israel, was alone singled out for censure. If Britain did not secure a ‘good deal’ in the Declaration, it would withdraw.
I am told, however, that behind Lord Malloch-Brown’s diplomatic phrasing lies fury in Whitehall that the Obama administration has pulled the rug from under Britain’s feet. It appears that the British government had finally arrived at a decision – not before time – to pull out of 'Durban 2' on the grounds that its vile agenda was now incontrovertible. But then the Obama administration announced it was going to get involved; and so Britain, marching as ever in public lockstep with Washington, had no choice but to abandon its walk-out -- to the dismay in particular, it seems, of the Czechs who were looking for a bit of moral leadership in Europe.
I must say that I am a little sceptical that the Brits were really about to pull out, having shown so little spine until now. But maybe they had indeed decided that enough was enough. And now look at why the Americans did this. According to this story in the Middle East Times,  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who wanted to boycott the conference, was bounced into participating by Susan Rice, America’s ambassador to the UN -- whose previous claim to fame was her apparent wish to place domestic political considerations above the need to prevent genocide in the Sudan -- and Samantha Powers, Obama’s Israel-loathing guru and now an official at the National Security Council. The paper reports:
Israeli Foreign Ministry officials had previously sought to block efforts by senior American administration officials to change Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's decision to boycott the conference. One of these officials included Susan Rice, the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and Obama's former campaign adviser. Rice is also pushing for the U.S. to join the U.N. Human Rights Council, which is based in Geneva. The body had been boycotted by the U.S., partly because of Washington's view that it is one-sided in its criticism of Israel.
Samantha Power, another Obama adviser at the National Security Council, is the other official pushing for American participation in Durban 2. Power participated in the initial Durban conference as the representative of a non-government organization and is known for her strong criticism of Israel. In the past, she expressed support for cutting U.S. military assistance to Israel and transferring the funds as aid to build a Palestinian state. The U.S. will later make a decision on whether to attend the conference in Geneva.
I have said before that Obama has effectively made Hillary the prisoner of a range of officials made up almost entirely of new realist appeasers, trans-national progressives and Israel/Jew-haters who have between them appropriated many of the powers of her office, leaving her as little more than a fig-leaf and fall-guy while the Obama administration prosecutes its agenda of flirting with the mortal enemies of the west while hanging Israel out to dry. The decision to engage with ‘Durban 2’ looks like the first scalping of Hillary. It is a horrible omen.