Simon Wiesenthal Center: US, EU Should Follow Canadian Lead and Boycott Durban III

November 26, 2010

The Simon Wiesenthal Center praised Canada’s decision to boycott the United
Nations’ Durban III “anti-racism” conference slated for September 2011.

“Once again Canada has shown moral courage and diplomatic leadership in
boycotting the so-called Durban process,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper,
associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish human Rights
NGO and who served as a spokesman for Jewish groups at the first UN Durban
Conference in South Africa in 2001.

“The first Durban Conference held shortly before 9/11 degenerated into an an
anti-Israel hatefest and last year’s Durban II at UN headquarters in Geneva
bestowed its opening keynote to Holocaust denying, genocide-threatening
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of the repressive Iranian regime. Now the UN
has voted to convene Durban III, just after the 10th anniversary of 9/11. We
urge the United States, members of the European Union and other democracies
to join Canada and announce their intention to boycott the next
manifestation of the Durban process which has made a mockery of the lofty
goal of combating racism,” Cooper noted.

“The 400,000 members of the Simon Wiesenthal Center salute Prime Minister
Stephen Harper for his consistent leadership in the struggle against
anti-Semitism and his unabashed support for Israel’s rights in the
International arena and hope that other world leaders committed to
democratic values and human rights will follow his lead,” Cooper concluded.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human
rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States.
It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO,
the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament
(Parlatino).