Countering anti-Israel bias at the Durban Conference  

Most UN members were involved in the preparation of the Durban conference. However, many countries, with dubious human rights records had an important role, for example, the drafting committee was chaired by Iran.

In the preparatory meetings prior to Durban that took place in the five regions, some countries tried to add in the concluding texts references that Zionism equaled racism and thus mark Israel as a racist State. This language was finally removed after the US threatened to withdraw from the conference (which they ended up doing). This showed that one of the main goals of the conference was to single out Israel.  It has become the symbol of the campaign to delegitimize Israel, which continue to this day.

The NGO forum that was held before the Durban conference issued a declaration as well. It included language equating Zionism with racism, and accusations of racial discrimination based on ethnic origin by Israel as the occupying power. The NGO forum was also marred with visible manifestations of anti-Israel and antisemitic bigotry, including the distribution of a pro-Hitler, antisemitic flyer “What if [Hitler] had won?”

In the conference’s final declaration, the Durban Declaration and Program of Action (DDPA), the “Palestinian people under foreign occupation” are listed as victims of racism. The US and Israel left the conference and have since boycotted any follow-up mechanisms.

In April 2009, the Durban Review Conference (DRC) was held at the UN in Geneva to review the implementation of the DDPA. Gaddafi’s Libya, a persistent human rights violator, was chairing the preparatory committee, which also created controversy.

Ten countries boycotted the DRC as they felt it would be used to promote antisemitism, stand against forms of free speech and would not deal with discrimination of the LGBT community: Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland and the United States.

The only head of state who participated at the DRC was Iranian Leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. During his speech, he called Israel a racist state and denied the Holocaust, and several delegations walked out publicly during his speech.

Durban follow-up mechanisms were utilized to promote the Islamic Group’s “defamation of religions” campaign, which argued that religions, in particular Islam, should be protected from criticism under human rights law, as well as to consider blasphemy a human rights issue. This would, however, mean the elimination of the possibility of criticism of religion at all and thus is very problematic. Their goal was to draft an additional protocol to the Convention for the Elimination on Racial Discrimination on this topic.

A UN General Assembly high-level event in September 2011 to commemorate the ten years of Durban was boycotted by 14 governments, under fears that it promoted, rather than combatted, racism: Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. 

The high-level conference, in the framework of the September 2021 General Assembly session was boycotted by Albania, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Moldova, Netherlands, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, UK, US and Uruguay. The European Union also did not participate or speak at the commemoration.