What is Durban IV, and why it is shameful for SA to be hosting it
17 August 2021
After experiencing an unprecedented paroxysm of violence, looting and ethnic warfare, Durban is about to again become the epicentre of another shameful event, the Durban IV World Conference against Racism, which is scheduled for 22 September. The event this year marks the 20th anniversary of the notorious 2001 Durban Conference, which will go down in history as possibly the worst openly anti-Semitic hate fest since the Second World War.
Contrary to its intended purpose, the Durban Conference actively promoted antisemitism, racism, intolerance and Holocaust denial and blamed only Israel out of all the nations on earth, for giving birth to a ‘new type of Apartheid”, thereby denying it’s right to exist.
It is unsurprising that South Africa is the host to such an abhorrent event. It’s policies in which it singles out only the Jewish state for all the ills that have befallen the Palestinians, give succour to the strident voices seeking scapegoats.
Since 2012, when Dirco’s Ebrahim Ebrahim discouraged any visits of South Africans to Israel and any official contact with Israel, effectively closing the door shut to any exposure to the Israeli narrative, intolerance and ignorance about Israel have reigned supreme.
To the extent that it is even considered a profanity for any civil servant, including judges, to express a mildly sympathetic support for Israel, free speech has been sacrificed and stultified. It is the official policy of the ANC to support the Palestinians, and any party official who strays from this standpoint risks losing his job. The ANC’s single mindedness in avoiding direct contact with Israeli officials, is fully in sync with the policies of Iran, which clearly manifests its anti-Semitic tendencies.
By the company that the ANC keeps, the dictators from Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and Hamas it has made known where it stands: anti-Western and anti-Zionist. It goes further however, when the only country it excludes from even talking to happens to be the only Jewish state, then South Africa complies with the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) working definition of being anti-Semitic.
As Durban IV will take place on the second day of the UNGA’s 76th session general debate, the meeting’s official theme will be “Reparations, racial justice and equality for people of African descent”.
It will be interesting to see whether Israel receives credit and praise for being the only country in the world to come to the rescue of “black Africans” when 15,000 Ethiopian Falashas were rescued and flown out of the Sudan to Israel under the codename “Operation Solomon”. Similarly, between1949 and 1950 under “Operation Magic Carpet”, 49,000 Yemenites were rescued and brought to Israel.
It is perhaps apt to remember that the first Durban Conference in 2001 took place one week before the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York, and that its obsessive focus on one country only, allowed many truly repressive, misogynistic and racist countries off the hook. “Instead of combating racism, however, the conference actually incited it. Durban became the worst international manifestation of antisemitism in the post-war period.” (UN Watch).
To the credit of at least 11 democratic countries, including the USA, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Israel, France and the Czech Republic that have already announced that they will not be attending the upcoming Conference, as they are actively involved in squelching the rise of anti-Semitism in their own countries and cannot countenance the Jew hatred that the Conference is bound to dish up.
South Africa recently disgraced itself when it came out against the progress made under the “Abraham accords” which promoted peace and normal relations between Israel and four Arab countries and condemned Israel being granted observer status in the African Union.
Even with low expectations for Durban IV, South Africa is unlikely to cover itself in glory. The only question is how low will they stoop to ingratiate themselves with the real bigots, racists and anti-Semites.
Ben Levitas
