Is the conference boycott justified?

[RSS News]

Delegates walk out of a UN conference on racism during the Iranian president's speech. What's your view?

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[Dimentio]

Its hardly the most serious conference ever. The intentions of conferences like this is to make the ruling class look benevolent anyway. The problem is that the western leaders and the leaders of the islamic nations has two differing agendas.

The western leaders simply want to point finger at some conflicts to show how "humanitarian" and "enlightened" they are. To sorta impress centrists and left-wing reformists.

The leaders of islamic countries want to show their islamist opposition that they are true muslims by attacking newspapers who are publishing cartoons of the prophet Muhammed outside of the islamic world.

This has created a lot of grief within the summit.

Eventually, it all was ruined by Ahmadinejad, a prominent IRL troll who has understood that the best way of creating havoc in the world body is to make borderline antisemitic remarks about Jewish world domination.

In short, the UN has turned from a farce into a joke.

[STJ]

I dont think it makes any diffirence.

[Dimentio]

I dont think it makes any diffirence.

It does'nt. The UN has been about to collapse since the end of the cold war, even though that process accelerated when the neo-conservatives dominated in Washington.

[Communist Theory]

Why exactly are they boycotting?
What are they discussing in the conference?

[Dimentio]

Why exactly are they boycotting?
What are they discussing in the conference?

The western nations which are boycotting the summit are doing it because of two reasons which they claim are the following:

1. The Durban summit of 2001 singled out zionism as a racist Jewish-supremacist ideology. The USA and Israel walked out. They wanted to ratify this for this time. The USA, EU and Israel protested, and threatened to walk out if not all references to Israel were erased. They were, but references to Palestine and to occupation as a form of racism was left.

2. The current summit has also proposed to protect religions, making it a racist offense to attack religion. The islamic nations has been the sponsors behind this.

[Dean]

Iran's Ahmadinejad has said nothing significantly condemnable in the conference. His Holocaust denial wasn't apparently present, so the shameful remarks in this case lay totally with the piece of shit world leaders who refuse to recognize Israel for the White Nationalist state it is.

[Communist Theory]

Well I think that the conference is pretty idiotic and should be scrapped.

[Dimentio]

Iran's Ahmadinejad has said nothing significantly condemnable in the conference. His Holocaust denial wasn't apparently present, so the shameful remarks in this case lay totally with the piece of shit world leaders who refuse to recognize Israel for the White Nationalist state it is.

Probably. But I don't really understand why Israel is that important. It lies in a strategic location, yes. It has nuclear weapons, yes. Are there pragmatic reasons for people to get so upset about that state that they go to insane lengths to defend its policies (apart from religion and corruption)?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Probably. But I don't really understand why Israel is that important. It lies in a strategic location, yes. It has nuclear weapons, yes. Are there pragmatic reasons for people to get so upset about that state that they go to insane lengths to defend its policies (apart from religion and corruption)?

Israel is an important part of US imperialism. It's like saying why does the UK care about supporting Northern Ireland or why was the US so upset that their puppets in Cuba or Iran were toppled.

Just as Israel in that location was supposed to be an "outpost" for the UK - it's is an outpost for US imperialism in the middle east. Now without the Shah of Iran or a reliable Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Israel's military power in the region is even more important to the US.

Although the US works with other regimes in the area, if Egypt bombed countries in the Middle East or bullied Iran or other countries for the US, there would probably be a revolt from Egyptians - Israel doesn't have that problem because they their population feels it benefits from/is linked to imperialism. For workers in the US, US imperialism means that they get shipped off to fight, the cost of the war is placed on them, and if the US wins, workers don't get anything except an even stronger ruling class that is more able to exploit and oppress them without opposition. In Israel however, the population sees the victory of Israel as a real material benefit to them and sections of the population even get cheep suburban developments with lots of angry Palestinian ex-residents of that land for target practice.

[h0m0revolutionary]

Eventually, it all was ruined by Ahmadinejad, a prominent IRL troll who has understood that the best way of creating havoc in the world body is to make borderline antisemitic remarks about Jewish world domination.


Firslty let me state that I have a wide history of attackign Ahmadinejad and do so often.. but

I have to say that here, there is very little to attack him for, this is what he said:

"After WWII, the Europeans made a whole nation homeless under the pretext
of Jewish suffering. they sent migrants from Europe to set up a racist
nation in Palestine"

(At this point many government delegates walk out of plenary, mostly made up of EU states)

"The Europeans helped bring to power the most cruel and oppressive racist
regime in the world in Palestine. The UN security council helped stabilize
this regime and supported it for 60 years. It is regrettable that the US
and others have supported these racist perpetrators of genocide,
bombardments of civilians in Gaza... they all stand in silence during
these crimes and have always been silent."


" The image of humanity has been tarnished: world Zionism personifies
racism that falsely resorts to religion and abuses religion to hide their
hatred and ugly faces."


"It is important to bring into focus the political goals of the world powers. They mobilize great resources, world media for example, to support the Zionist regime. This ugly phenomenon cannot be campaigned against. The Zionists and their supporters must be
stopped, and their influence cut short. Governments must eradicate this barbaric racism. You are all aware of the conspiracies of some powers. Unfortunately there have been statements in support of Zionism, through honorable representatives of nations."

Now with the exception of calling uponb governments to overthrow Israel I see no contention whatsoever. Even amungest liberals surely there is little disagreement, the establishment of the Israeli state was a wholly racist endeavour, many Israeli academics and outright Zionists recognise that!

So no, the 'walkout' wasn't justified, but nor is spending vast sums of money on irrelivent conferences like this. The whole UN is nothing but a threatre production, and in spotlight at the moment in US - Iranian antagonisms, which is a very dull play, as we both know they're poor actors.

What we SHOULD be getting annoyed about however, is Ahmadinejads opportunism. For all his rhetoric the whole history of Iran is maintaing clandestine relaions with Israel. In the 80's Israel procided the theocracy with weapons to the sum of $2.5 Billion (US) and they even entered into a military project together (lovingly called 'project flower') which attempted to build a missle similar to the famous US Harpoon missile.

Ahmadinejad is a tyrant and we should always attack him, but he said nothing incorrent about the racism of the Israeli state. If only he actually was anti-zionist in his actions and not just his words..

[Dimentio]

Firslty let me state that I have a wide history of attackign Ahmadinejad and do so often.. but

I have to say that here, there is very little to attack him for, this is what he said:

"After WWII, the Europeans made a whole nation homeless under the pretext
of Jewish suffering. they sent migrants from Europe to set up a racist
nation in Palestine"

(At this point many government delegates walk out of plenary, mostly made up of EU states)

"The Europeans helped bring to power the most cruel and oppressive racist
regime in the world in Palestine. The UN security council helped stabilize
this regime and supported it for 60 years. It is regrettable that the US
and others have supported these racist perpetrators of genocide,
bombardments of civilians in Gaza... they all stand in silence during
these crimes and have always been silent."


" The image of humanity has been tarnished: world Zionism personifies
racism that falsely resorts to religion and abuses religion to hide their
hatred and ugly faces."


"It is important to bring into focus the political goals of the world powers. They mobilize great resources, world media for example, to support the Zionist regime. This ugly phenomenon cannot be campaigned against. The Zionists and their supporters must be
stopped, and their influence cut short. Governments must eradicate this barbaric racism. You are all aware of the conspiracies of some powers. Unfortunately there have been statements in support of Zionism, through honorable representatives of nations."

Now with the exception of calling uponb governments to overthrow Israel I see no contention whatsoever. Even amungest liberals surely there is little disagreement, the establishment of the Israeli state was a wholly racist endeavour, many Israeli academics and outright Zionists recognise that!

So no, the 'walkout' wasn't justified, but nor is spending vast sums of money on irrelivent conferences like this. The whole UN is nothing but a threatre production, and in spotlight at the moment in US - Iranian antagonisms, which is a very dull play, as we both know they're poor actors.

What we SHOULD be getting annoyed about however, is Ahmadinejads opportunism. For all his rhetoric the whole history of Iran is maintaing clandestine relaions with Israel. In the 80's Israel procided the theocracy with weapons to the sum of $2.5 Billion (US) and they even entered into a military project together (lovingly called 'project flower') which attempted to build a missle similar to the famous US Harpoon missile.

Ahmadinejad is a tyrant and we should always attack him, but he said nothing incorrent about the racism of the Israeli state. If only he actually was anti-zionist in his actions and not just his words..

Well, then they walked out just because he was Ahmadinejad.

[jake williams]

There's a lot wrong with the conference and what the "Islamic bloc" proposes - it's hardly a solution for the problem of racism in all its facets around the world.

But like I said here when a thread came up about the boycott a month or two ago: the boycotting countries are doing so because they support racism. Israel is inherently a racist state; this racism supports Western imperialism; Western governments support Western imperialism; so Western governments support racism.

Again, I'm not a fan of things like banning even mild criticism of religion, or the very real anti-semitic elements among those supporting the conference. But if you really opposed racism, and you opposed those proposals, you would go to the conference and say, look, we're going to stop occupying your land and murdering or otherwise cleansing the native inhabitants, but you need to reciprocate. Canada, the US etc. are not interested in doing that, and of course Israel isn't because its very existence is based on the premise that you can take a territory and create an ethnically pure state excluding the native population. That's racism, but it's way more than that. (Actually, for that matter, the existence of the US and Canada is based on that, but that's perhaps another story).

Why is Israel important? A friend of mine in Jordan put it this way: if someone invaded say, Montana, and told all its inhabitants to leave, that this state belongs to, I don't know, Iranians, and the Americans have a huge country they can go live in so it's no big deal, but we're going to let the entire Muslim world keep military bases in Montana, and really if we decide we want the Dakotas we'll take that too, but really, why should other Americans be upset? There's plenty of room for people from Montana, it's only a small state. Why should people all the way in New York or Florida be upset about that? What's racist about expelling and murdering all the white inhabitants except for a few trapped in refugee camps?

If that happened, it certainly wouldn't be the largest human tragedy in the world, on the grand scale of suffering. But I don't think any of us would find it strange if Americans found it intolerable.

[h0m0revolutionary]

If that happened, it certainly wouldn't be the largest human tragedy in the world, on the grand scale of suffering. But I don't think any of us would find it strange if Americans found it intolerable.


But moreover I think that Israel, as the last settler-colonial state in the world represents a throwback from the days of Euorpean Cololialism, and just like past colonialism it's formation was unacceptle, it's continuation is unacceptable and to make sure it remains the last settler state we must focus all we can dismantling zionism; an idoeology combing reaction, nationalism, racism and dehumanisation.

[Angry Young Man]

I'm not an apologist for the Iranian regime, but I disagreed with nothing that the report told Amadinejad said. Yes, I know I should be sceptical of the media, but the BBC would, I'da thought, damn Iran. Therefore, they would logically have reported all the reprehensible contents rather than the admirable.

[progressive_lefty]

It does'nt. The UN has been about to collapse since the end of the cold war, even though that process accelerated when the neo-conservatives dominated in Washington.

Pessimism?
The UN still has an important role to play, despite the double-standards of Israel and the US. The UN can still provide the world with an institution to discuss world affairs and provide humanitarian assistance in Africa. I don't think its wise to just dismiss it being as on the brink of 'collapse'.

[Global_Justice]

I have to say that here, there is very little to attack him for, this is what he said:

"After WWII, the Europeans made a whole nation homeless under the pretext
of Jewish suffering. they sent migrants from Europe to set up a racist
nation in Palestine"

(At this point many government delegates walk out of plenary, mostly made up of EU states)




u conviently miss out his reference to the holocaust. according to the guardian whaat he said was "on the pretext of Jewish suffering and the ambiguous and dubious question of the Holocaust..."

such a remark at the beginning of a speech makes huge difference to the context in which it is going to be interpreted.

[Uppercut]

Ahmadenijad was right when he said Israel is racist. The zionist nation is built on ethnic cleansing and war crimes. And before anyone calls Iran racist, the country has it's own jewish population, which surprisingly, is opposed to Israel. Zionism doesn't represent world-wide jewery.

[la lucha sigue]

u conviently miss out his reference to the holocaust. according to the guardian whaat he said was "on the pretext of Jewish suffering and the ambiguous and dubious question of the Holocaust..."

such a remark at the beginning of a speech makes huge difference to the context in which it is going to be interpreted.


If he indeed did say this, then all the rest of his good work was undone. Nothing wrong with the premise that Zionism is based on the pretext of jewish suffering, but referring to the holocaust as ambiguous and dubious is offensive. I can understand why delegates walked out, even if they are all racist hypocrites for their support of Israel.

However, i'd like to see proof that he did say that. Too often holocaust denial and anti-semitism are raised against those who dare to criticse israel, when a closer look at what is said discloses nothing of the sort.

[la lucha sigue]

thread now open with full transcipt, i can't link because i'm new apparently. its in this section, not hard to find

no mention of the holocaust. be careful of zionist disinformation.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Zionist disinformation or an consistent inclination to lend backdoor support to oppressors?