Barbara Kay: Shame on the UN for commemorating 25 years of toxic antizionism - National Post

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks at a high-level meeting to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Durban Declaration at the United Nations Headquarters on September 22, 2021 in New York City. Photo by John Angelillo-Pool/Getty ImagesArticle contentAs a child in the 1950s, I remember my idealistic heart swelling as my classmates and I belted out the stirring lyrics to the anthem, “United Nations on the March,” the only contribution the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich ever wrote for Hollywood, featured in the 1943 film, Thousands Cheer.

The song had many verses, all projecting a world finally cleansed of ancient hatreds, conflict and oppression. The one that sticks in my memory goes, “As sure as the sun meets the morning/ And rivers go down to the sea/ A new day for mankind is dawning/ Our children shall live proud and free,” segueing to the chorus, “United nations on the march with flags unfurled/ Together fight for victory, a free new world.”

Swathed in the song’s sentiments, the actual United Nations officially launched in 1945. Sadly, it wasn’t long before human nature, clashing national interests, ideology, bloc voting and — yes — “ancient hatreds” converged to mock the kumbaya rhetoric surrounding the UN’s founding. Every utopian scheme needs a scapegoat for its failure to achieve its impossible goal, and the UN found its handiest popular whipping boy in Zionism.

Columnist Jesse Kline keeps you up to date with what’s happening in Israel and the effects of antisemitism on life here in Canada. Friday mornings.

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Israel is no match for the 57 Muslim-majority members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), who are collectively consumed by Zionophobia. Even the Muslim states that cooperate with Israel in real life automatically cold-shoulder the Jewish state at the UN. From 2015 to the present, the UN General Assembly has passed 187 resolutions against Israel, and 90 resolutions against all other countries combined. If it were not for the U.S. veto in the Security Council, crippling sanctions against Israel (under Chapter VII of the UN Charter) might have accomplished what hostile armies and terrorists have so far failed to do.

On Sept. 28, the UN General Assembly will sponsor an event to commemorate the 25th anniversary of its infamous 2001 World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa, the birthplace of apartheid. It immediately emerged as a complete travesty of its mission: namely, to be the official debut of global attention to racism in general. In fact, it was a weeks-long orgy of Zionophobia and Jew hatred, and the launchpad for the false allegation of “apartheid” against Israel that has spread like an oil slick through western culture.

Last month, UN Watch and NGO Monitor held an informative and evocative webinar titled “25 Years After Durban: The lasting impact of the UN World Conference Against Racism.” The panel of experts had all been witnesses to the debacle, and their shock at the experience has kept their recollections vivid and their combative fervour animated.

Panellist David Harris, who was the chair of UN Watch back in 2001, was slated to be in Durban as a member of the official U.S. delegation, but supported the decision of his boss, Secretary of State Colin Powell, to withdraw over the ugly transmogrification of the conference’s mission. The U.S. and Israel left the conference at the same time.

Moderator Dina Porat, a historian who was a member of the Israeli Foreign Ministry delegation to Durban in 2001, recalled a Belgian delegate who left her “speechless” when he candidly told her that the focus on Israel was a cynical diversionary strategy to protect European countries from the awkwardness of public demands for reparations from their former colonies. Porat recalls him saying, “The simple solution was to pick on Israel and the Jews.”