Israel boycotts UN rights conference 
 
November 19, 2008
The International Herald Tribune
Original Source: 
– HYPERLINK https://mail.hudsonny.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/11/19/news/ML-Israel-UN-conference.php \t _blank http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/11/19/news/ML-Israel-UN-conference.php
https://mail.hudsonny.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/11/19/news/ML-Israel-UN-conference.php%23 \o Click to view map \t _blank JERUSALEM: Israel's foreign minister said Wednesday that the government will boycott a United Nations conference on human rights next year.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said the World Conference Against Racism is biased against Israel and is little more than a forum that aims to delegitimize the Jewish state. The gathering is scheduled to take place next April in Geneva.
She announced the planned boycott Wednesday at a conference of North American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem.
The U.N. conference is a follow up to a meeting held in 2001 in Durban, South Africa. At the time, Jewish participants said they were silenced and threatened by Arab activists.
The U.S. and Israel walked out midway through the 2001 conference because of a draft resolution that singled out Israel for criticism and compared Zionism — the movement to establish and maintain a Jewish state — to racism. The resolution was never adopted.