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Delegation Weighs Withdrawal From UN Racism Meeting� DURBAN, South Africa Thousands of nongovernmental organizations joined in adopting a resolution Sunday accusing Israel of genocide and crimes against humanity, giving pro-Palestinian groups an important victory and pushing the Israeli delegation to consider withdrawal from the parallel UN Conference Against Racism.. The document, adopted by a human rights forum coinciding with the UN conference, recommended international sanctions against Israel, called it "a racist apartheid state" and demanded an end to the "ongoing, Israeli systematic perpetration of racist crimes, including war crimes, acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing.". The forum was held on the sidelines of the UN conference, which started last Friday and runs through this Friday.. Jewish, Christian and international human rights groups rejected the forum's final resolution, which was presented to the UN high commissioner for human rights, Mary Robinson, for inclusion in a final declaration by the UN conference.. In Jerusalem, Israel considered pulling out its delegation unless a compromise on the wording was reached at the UN meeting.. "We are reaching a stage where we have to consider whether to walk out," Mordechai Yadid, deputy director at the Foreign Ministry's office for nongovernmental organizations, said at a news briefing, adding that Israel was willing to compromise but would not accept "hatred language" or finger-pointing.. The Israeli president, Moshe Katsav, angrily rejected the forum's criticism as "a palpable expression of racism and anti-Semitism.". A U.S. congressman, Tom Lantos, Democrat of California, said Sunday that Norway had proposed a compromise resolution acceptable to Washington. He did not elaborate. An earlier attempt at compromise by the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the U.S. civil rights leader, ended in failure over the weekend. About 6,000 groups were registered at the nongovernmental forum. At least 12, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the International Federation for Human Rights, refused to endorse the forum's declaration.. Pro-Palestinian groups effectively lobbied a majority of the forum groups to equate Zionism - the movement to establish and maintain a Jewish state - with racism. Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories was also decried as colonialism - a potent political label in much of the world.. The forum also recommended that the United Nations form a committee to prosecute alleged Israeli war crimes.. The document was approved in a rancorous meeting of the forum that began Saturday evening and ran into early Sunday.. Shawqi Issa, spokesman for the Arab caucus at the forum, said he believed the document was "a very good one.". "It's just facts," he said.. Mrs. Robinson, who has worked to allay the controversy over the condemnation of Israel at the UN conference, criticized the forum document, saying she regretted the language equating Zionism with racism.. Palestinians have the right to protest their victimization, but "it is not appropriate that text emerged that revictimizes and is hurtful in itself," said Mrs. Robinson, who is also secretary-general of the UN conference.. Human Rights Watch condemned the resolution.. "Israel has committed serious crimes against the Palestinian people, but it is simply not accurate to use the word genocide and wrong to equate Zionism with racism," Reed Brody, the New York-based group's advocacy director, said. Mr. Brody said that most of the forum's document was an eloquent condemnation of racist and discriminatory practices in many countries around the world. "It's just unfortunate that the use of inaccurate and intemperate language may overshadow all of that," he said.. Many groups have been upset that the Palestinian issue was overshadowing the conference. U.S. lawmakers said the meeting should focus more on racism, colonialism and reparations for past wrongs. They also denounced the Bush administration decision not to send Secretary of State Colin Powell to the conference because of the criticism of Israel in the conference's draft statement, but they acknowledged that there was a problem.. "It's a political, land-based conflict that is not grounded in racism," Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat, said of the Palestinian issue.. "The berating of the Jewish people," she said, "fills the conference with unnecessary hatred." (AP, Reuters, AFP) |
