Representatives of several leading Western countries walked out of a U.N. conference on racism in Switzerland yesterday when the president of Iran continued the same vitriol leveled at Israel at the previous conference. This report from The Washington Post has the details on the proceedings:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad argued before a U.N. anti-racism conference Monday that Israel is a “paragon of racism” founded on “the pretext of Jewish sufferings” during World War II. […] British and French diplomats, whose governments had threatened a walkout if they heard anti-Semitic or anti-Israel remarks, left the room. Peter Gooderham, the British ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, called Ahmadinejad’s remarks “outrageous” and “anti-Semitic,” according to news reports.
President Obama had wisely decided that the U.S. delegation would boycott the conference based on previous experience and the likelihood of this conference being a repeat performance. He did not want the U.S. to give credibility to a conference that would single out Israel while willfully ignoring major human rights violators. This op-ed in The New York Times questions that decision, suggesting that it would be better for the U.S. to be a party to the discussions, an active voice shaping the outcome, rather than leaving the field to those whose concept of justice is the destruction of a U.N. member country. Perhaps President Obama was also motivated by a desire to maintain momentum for a new engagement with Iran? If only Iran shared that concern.
