Martin Peretz minimizes the effort of the Obama administration is expending on Durban II and attributes the decision to attend the planning session to Dr. Susan Rice, the American ambassador to the UN.
The first full-fledged exercise in accommodating our international antagonists so they might accommodate us is now playing itself out in Geneva where the planning for Durban II is taking place. Our delegation of three is made up of small fry so if they come home with nothing not much will have really been lost, or some at Foggy Bottom will say. I suppose sending this grouplet of unknown was better than sending Mrs. Clinton: if the White House had sent her and she came back with empty hands the whole enterprise would of reeked of loss and defeat. Maybe Ambassador Rice should have been sent. Apparently, that the U.S. should attend this pre-extravaganza extravaganza was her cause. But there is no indication that she wanted to be directly saddled with the costs of going herself. She certainly grasped what the likely results would be.
Mere Rhetoric quotes from a Jerusalem Post report that both Susan Rice and Samantha Power are pushing the administration to attend the conference, not just work on the preliminaries and concludes:
This is outreach to Jew-hating fanatics. Even if the White House bails on the conference, the anti-Semitic organizers will have succeeded in moving the “engagement” goalposts.
And none of that matters for whether Peretz should be publicly retracting his defenses of Rice and Power. They’re not pushing for involvement in the planning stages. They’re pushing for involvement in Durban II as such. They apparently have Obama’s ear since they’ve thus far achieved involvement in the planning. If the President bails out later that might be a limited defense of his actions. Maybe. But it wouldn’t be a defense of Rice and Power.
This does not accord with Peretz’s hopeful scenario.
Nor does the latest from Anne Bayefsky (h/t Elder of Ziyon):
The EU had attempted to add a reference to the Holocaust at the last preparatory meeting (in January), which the U.S. did not attend. But Iran and Syria had objected. The EU proposal was therefore “bracketed†— entered into the items-in-dispute category. Both Syria and Iran had claimed there weren’t enough facts about the Holocaust to warrant a definitive denunciation. Iran had also complained that the proposal was in the wrong section.
So the EU tried again, and this time the American delegation was present. Here is how the discussion went:
European Union: We have a new proposal under the section on education and awareness-raising that would recall the U.N. General Assembly resolution on the remembrance of the Holocaust. It would read:
Urges states to raise awareness and to implement U.N. General Assembly resolutions 60/7 and 61/255 which inter alia observes that the remembrance of the Holocaust is critical to prevent further acts of genocide, condemns without reservation any denial of the Holocaust and urges all states to reject denial of the Holocaust as an historical event, either in full, or in part, or any activities to this end.
Iran: My delegation thinks that this is an inappropriate place to incorporate this new paragraph, so we request that this new paragraph be put in brackets.
Chair: Is there any delegation wishing to comment on this new proposal by the European Union? It doesn’t seem the case. We move on.
Since the operating principle is consensus, this put the Holocaust provision in dispute. But the American delegation chose not to go on the record strongly supporting the EU’s proposal, as it had on other items. Not a peep came from the “change the direction in which the Review Conference is heading†folks.
In addition, as Bayefsy observed, the American delegation – consisting of seven diplomats not three – failed to stand up for Israel at another point.
The Wall Street Journal notes some other mischief going on in Geneva:
The draft also calls “on states to develop, and where appropriate to incorporate, permissible limitations on the exercise of the right to freedom of expression into national legislation.” Yes, you read that right. The transparent purpose is to criminalize all criticism of Islam, a.k.a. “Islamophobia.” There is also a not-so-sly effort to extract reparations for the long-banned trans-Atlantic slave trade: States that “have not yet condemned, apologized and paid reparations” for the trade are urged “to do so at the earliest.”
The Obama Administration knows all of this. In its press release, the State Department stressed that its intent in sending a delegation to Geneva is “to try to change the direction in which the Review Conference is heading.” State also adds that its involvement “does not indicate — and should not be misconstrued to indicate — that the United States will participate” in the formal conference.
The Journal isn’t encouraged:
We’d be more confident if State hadn’t released the news at 7:03 p.m. last Saturday, when most of the world was better occupied. This is how Washington officialdom announces decisions of which it is not especially proud.
Or when Washington doesn’t want to risk a negative reaction.
Rick Richman doesn’t think American involvement should continue:
Obama is in the process of making either a low-level, half-hearted diplomatic effort before withdrawing from Durban II, or a low-level, half-hearted diplomatic effort before participating in it: we will learn which in due course. But what is currently going on is not a “high level diplomatic effort†involving “moral leadership.†Moral leadership will occur if Obama decides to withdraw from Durban II – if, in other words, he decides to do what George W. Bush did in connection with Durban I.
And Jennifer Rubin reminds us of the words of Barack Obama supporter, Colin Powell from 2001:
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 racismâ€; 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.
Such considerations do not seem to be moving the Obama administration.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
