UN Protects Israel From Racism Charges -- Nora Barrows-Friedman

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Portion below; whole thing here:  http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=53524&s2=19

The Durban Review Conference website states that the 2009 Geneva symposium is designed to "review progress and assess the implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA)." Adopted by general consensus at the 2001 WCAR in Durban, "the DDPA is a comprehensive, action-oriented document that proposes concrete measures to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. It is holistic in its vision, addresses a wide range of issues, and contains far- reaching recommendations and practical measures."

In order to assess and review any progress made since the 2001 WCAR in Durban, Palestinian human rights organisations planned several side events that were to take place within the schedule of the conference.

However, two weeks ago, the UN High Commissioner's office unilaterally cancelled all side-events pertaining to Palestine issues. Ingrid Jarradat- Gassner, director of the BADIL Resource Centre for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights in Bethlehem, one of several Palestine-based organisations attending the Durban Review conference, tells IPS that BADIL and the other NGOs had organised a side-event specifically about how and why they see Israel as a "regime of institutionalised racial discrimination on both sides of the Green Line."

"As Palestinian NGOs and other NGOs working on the issue of Israel and its violations against the rights of the Palestinian people, we were expecting that there would be a possibility for us to organise these side-events during the official Durban review conference in Geneva," Jarradat-Gassner says. "We were informed by the UN itself that this would be possible."

Jarradat-Gassner says that on Apr. 3, less than three weeks before the Durban Review Conference, the UN High Commissioner's office called BADIL's representative in Geneva into a meeting at the UN, and verbally informed her that all side-events pertaining to the specific issue of Palestine and Israel had been banned.

"We were not even informed in any sort of direct of official way. In fact, we have no record of the decision of the UN not to let us work on such side- events," says Jarradat-Gassner.

According to the UN's Durban Review Conference agenda, other side-events focusing on indigenous rights, women's rights and the link between racism and poverty will have an official platform.

Jarradat-Gassner says she knows there is a specific apprehension within the political UN body towards Palestine issues. In the draft document for the Durban Review Conference, she points out, there are particular recommendations for victims of HIV/AIDS, for victims of slave trade, Roma people, people of African descent, but, Jarradat-Gassner says, "there is not a single reference to Palestine, Palestinians or Israel in this whole document."