UN Watchs Hillel Neuer on Al Jazeera
"The Durban II Debates: UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer on Al Jazeera With Riz Khan"
On September 24, 2008, UN Watch’s Executive Director, Hillel Neuer, appeared on Riz Khan’s Al Jazeera program in New York. The second guest was Massoud Shadjareh, Chair of London’s Islamic Human Rights Commission, which was active in the anti-Israel campaign at the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban.
Hillel Neuer asserted that the Durban Review Process is "on the wrong track already," beginning with the election of Libya as its Chair. As indicated by the Regional Preparatory Meetings in South America and Africa, the Review Conference is headed in the same direction as the first Conference, aiming to demonize Israel and restrict freedom of speech, while ignoring racist acts by Sudan and China, among others.
Neuer suggested that the Process has been "hijacked by a radical political agenda," and an attempt by abusive countries to "indict the world’s most liberal democracies" through a "cynical subversion of the language of human rights." In his view, this is ingrained in the United Nations’ regular procedure, whereby regional blocks dominate the debates, gaining exactly what they want through their automatic majority. It is these very countries, which have consistently excluded Israel, that are now complaining of Israel’s threatened boycott of the Durban Review Conference.
Meanwhile, Massoud Shadjareh focused his remarks on anti-Israeli allegations, including demonizing terms such as "apartheid." Following the pattern established in 2001, he sought to place this issue at the top of the Durban Review Conference agenda.