"Hypocracy" It Ain't

This week the abortion called the the United Nations Conference on Racism comes to an end in Switzerland. God knows the peoples of this tired old earth have had problems relating to one another as history went down the pike, but even the brightest among us would be challenged to discern how this latest exercise was any step in a positive direction.

Before it even started, the conference was doomed to failure because of something that occurred at the first one. Back then, at Durban South Africa, most of the little states got 'out of hand' and focused on that grand little Jewish experiment on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean and decided it was a 'racist' entity.

Well, when you go saying this about a people who claim to have suffered more from racism than anybody else on earth, these are fighting words. It was evident then, and is no less evident now, to call anybody who survived a concentration camp, or their descendants unto the third or fourth generation (kapos and anwarts excepted)'racists' is just asking to be labeled "anti-semitic". Actually it's to be labeled 'anti-Jewish' for there are some semites who don't want to be included. And that's the nub, for the government of Israel is demanding that the world, and the Palestinians in particular, recognize Israel as a Jewish state. A Jewish state having the same sort of oppressive powers that have maintained since 1949 and which have, from time to time, disrupted the middle east.

To have Achmedinejad be the kick-off speaker for such a conference was only slightly less bright than having Dave Dukes show up to speak on the proper place of 'darkies'. That Ban Ki Moon could stand up to regret what the President of Iran had to say it ludicrous when it is considered Ban didn't have to let him have the podium. Where are their heads?

Or is this one of those reset to zero things?

The first conference at Durban, rather than pegging a couple of 'axles of evil' being racist and needing regime change or something western, chose to pick on gallant li'l Israel. And since gallant li'l Israel has managed to stand up for itself again, and again, they've continued to pick on it. So invite Achmedinejad to frost everybody and get some real anti-racism done - like the Darfuris, the Indians of Venezuela, or the white folk in Bolivia. Their situations make Gaza and the West Bank look like an outing to McDavids.

Now that all the world's akin, or at least all the world with significant Jewish populations to support their governments' walking-out in disgust - the UN racism body should be able to re-focus. Except that all those little nations that got out of hand last time, stayed behind this time. Whether Europe wants to be a part of what the UN decides on racism is inconsequential - Europe gave rise to most of the negative racism the world has experienced, they certainly nuanced and or institutionalized it. Israel is certainly not worth calling the kettle black about.

The body will meet again at least twice during the current American administration and I don't think this Jewish organized walkout will be repeated. Nor will the UN position on racism be 'exempted' in relation to Israel.