Israel Review Conference comes to a Close as Durban Review Conference Begins
20 April 2009
Thousands of people have gathered in Geneva from all corners of
the globe to attend the Durban Review Conference.
The Israel Review Conference brought together over three hundred
people from five continents, including human rights activists and
experts from South Africa, Malaysia and several European and Middle
Eastern countries. The first day of the conference included two
main panels that dealt with the applicability of the crime of
apartheid to the state of Israel, and the development of
legal strategies for obtaining the accountability of Israel and
other states for their obligations under international law to
respect the rights of the Palestinian people.
Practical recommendations were developed on the second day of the conference in workshops about the joint struggle of victimized communities for justice and equality; a global campaign against the Jewish National Fund as a major agency of Israel’s racial discrimination; popular initiatives for promoting prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity; and the growing global movement for Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel pending compliance with international law.
“It has been clear that Israel has worked to ensure that its regime of racial discrimination is not scrutinized at the Durban Review” said Rania Madi, one of the conference organizers. “These efforts are a major reason for the boycott of the conference by many states. The UN has tried to appease the United States, in particular, by sacrificing core issues. Now we are neither here nor there: those states are not attending, and the UN Conference will not address such core issue as Israel’s protracted regime of apartheid, colonialism and occupation over the Palestinian people.”
“It is important to remind ourselves why efforts such as this Israel Review Conference are important” says Pierre Galland, a former Belgian Senator and President of the European Coordinating Committee on Palestine (ECCP). “We undertake them because we cannot be sure that governments and the UN will do their job. We are here to ensure that they will eventually do so.”
The Israel Review Conference was organized by the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) in coordination the European Coordinating Committee on Palestine, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, and the International CoordinatingNetwork on Palestine.