Since racial hatred has animated some of the worst atrocities in history, one would think that an opportunity for nations to come together and seek solutions to racial tensions would be welcomed.

Think again.

The upcoming United Nations Durban Review Conference in Durban, South Africa—billed as an international effort to achieve racial reconciliation—is likely to make a mockery of any bona fide attempt to overcome racial discrimination.

The Conference, scheduled for 2009, will review the international progress made in response to the "Durban Declaration and Programme of Action" released by the first Durban conference in 2001. This earlier conference was initially billed as an attempt to bring together representatives from fifty-three nations in order to proclaim the equality of all men and to condemn racial hatred and discrimination around the world. Rather than producing a clear statement against racism, however, the conference crumbled under the weight of the racist impulses of the countries involved.

Among those countries attending the 2001 conference were China, Columbia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Two of these countries (Syria and Cuba) are on the U.S. State Department's top ten list of worst human rights violators, and China was only just dropped from the list in 2008. It became clear early on that the first Durban conference would not achieve any great leap forward in racial equality. The United States and Israel quickly saw that they were going to be the scapegoats of the conference, as delegates from the Middle East sought to condemn Zionism and the Western slave trade as the prime examples of racism in human history. Not surprisingly, the United States and Israel withdrew their delegations a few days into the conference.

Then Secretary of State Colin Powell explained the withdrawal of the U.S. delegation: "I know that you do not combat racism by conferences that produce declarations containing hateful language, some of which is a throwback to the days of 'Zionism equals racism'; or supports the idea that we have made too much of the Holocaust; or suggests that apartheid exists in Israel; or that singles out only one country in the world, Israel, for censure and abuse." The lofty goals of the conference were quickly reduced to unilateral finger-pointing and name calling.

The tone of the final declaration of the conference was edited to remove direct condemnations of Zionism, but its unevenness is still evident. Anti-semitism is only mentioned twice in the document, and both times it is grouped next to "Islamaphobia," suggesting that a fear of Islam has the same historical significance as the persecutions suffered by the Jewish people. Moreover, one of the worst cases of racial hatred in human history, the Holocaust, was only referenced once in the document, without commentary or explanation.

These brief references to anti-semitism would perhaps be adequate if the Declaration and Programme of Action were not over sixty pages long and did not go on for innumerable pages about the injustices suffered by Africans, migrants, and indigenous peoples. These injustices are real and every country needs to take responsibility for the wrongs it has done, but pointing to one set of injustices while essentially ignoring others is simply a variant of the very racism that the declaration was intended to end.

The reality is that many countries—particularly those in the Middle East—are not interested in condemning anti-semitism, because their own people persist in their hatred of Israel. These are countries where many still deny that the Holocaust ever occurred. Continued...