Britain walks out of conference as Ahmadinejad calls Israel 'racist'

Smallwood

Jedi Master
_http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/20/un-conference-boycott-ahmadinejad Full article with video, links and audio.


Britain walks out of conference as Ahmadinejad calls Israel 'racist'
European delegates at Geneva anti-racism meeting boycott Iranian president's speech

Julian Borger in Geneva and Robert Booth
guardian.co.uk, Monday 20 April 2009 15.29 BST

Link to video: _http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/apr/20/ahmadinejad-boycott

Dozens of diplomats, including Britain's UN ambassador in Geneva, walked out of a speech by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this afternoon when the Iranian president accused Israel of being "a totally racist" regime.

The address at a UN conference on racism in Geneva was disrupted by protesters who heckled Ahmadinejad after he branded Israel a "cruel and oppressive racist regime". He said the state of Israel was created "on the pretext of Jewish suffering" from the second world war.

Peter Gooderham, the UK ambassador to the UN in Geneva, walked out along with representatives from France, Spain and several other European countries. One shook his fist at the Iranian president as he left. The delegates said they planned to return to the session as soon as Ahmadinejad had finished speaking.

Julian Borger on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's address in Geneva (_http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/audio/2009/apr/20/iran)

European countries had been split over whether to attend amid fears Ahmadinejad and other delegates could ignite a new row over the Holocaust or Israel's right to exist.

Germany, Poland and the Netherlands were joining a boycott led by the US and Israel. France and Britain attended but promised to walk out of the conference if offensive language was used at the podium.

The protesters leapt to their feet and shouted "racist" in French at Ahmadinejad when he made his remarks about the state of Israel.

Some wore clown wigs and one, who was positioned among the delegates, managed to run to within 10 yards of the Iranian president before throwing a soft red object, hitting the podium and interrupting his speech. The protester was ushered out by security.

The protesters said they represented the Union of Jewish Students in France. "We did it because it's all a farce," Joelle Jakubowicz said. "You can't fight racism if you are racist yourself."

France's foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, speaking before Ahmadinejad's speech, said "we will not tolerate any blunder or provocation" from Ahmadinejad, who has referred to the Holocaust as a myth and called for Israel to be "wiped off the pages of history".

If Ahmadinejad "proffers any racist or antisemitic accusations we will leave the hall immediately", Kouchner said.

The Iranian president, the only head of state at the conference, is due to give a press conference today, which coincides with the start of Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The Foreign Office said in a statement, also released before the speech: "The United Kingdom has argued strongly for the concluding document to contain adequate language on Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism. We will find unacceptable any attempt to use the Durban process to trivialise or deny the Holocaust, or to renegotiate agreements on the fight against antisemitism."

A flurry of late-night telephone calls between European foreign ministries failed to salvage what British officials hoped would be a common European position, amid growing unease about what Ahmadinejad would say and fears that a draft text from the UN anti-racism conference would single out Israel and call for bans on the freedom to express criticism of religion.

Israel today announced it was recalling its ambassador to Switzerland for consultations. Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said that while Israel would be commemorating 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis, "in Switzerland the guest of honour is a racist and a Holocaust denier who doesn't conceal his intention to wipe Israel off the face of this Earth".

The US said on Saturday that it would not be attending today's UN conference because of what Washington said was "objectionable" language in a draft statement. The Geneva meeting is known as the Durban Review Conference because it is intended to follow up a world conference against racism held in the South African city eight years ago, when the US and Israel walked out in anger at attempts to equate Zionism with racism.

One person not boycotting the conference was the film star Jon Voight, a staunch supporter of Israel who said he had come to confront Ahmadinejad's position on the Holocaust. Voight told the Guardian: "The fox is in charge of the hen house here. This is supposed to be about human rights, but hidden under that banner is antisemitism. Someone has to respond to it."

The draft statement for this week's conference does not single out Israel but formally upholds the 2001 declaration, which does. The UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, said she was "shocked and deeply disappointed" by the US boycott. On the Guardian's Comment is Free website today, Pillay concedes that the 2001 meeting has been "tainted by the antisemitic behaviour of some NGOs on the sidelines", but she argues that the best way to tackle such issues is to participate in this week's meeting.

That position was echoed today by Human Rights Watch. Juliette de Rivero, the group's Geneva advocacy director, said: "The sad truth is that countries professing to want to avoid a reprise of the contentious 2001 racism conference are now the ones triggering the collapse of a global consensus on the fight against racism."

British officials say the current draft text is acceptable if "adequate language" is included on the Holocaust and antisemitism, but they are also anxious to retain European solidarity.

Ahmadinejad's speech and press conference will be carefully scrutinised for his tone towards the US after Barack Obama's recent overtures to Tehran.

The Iranian president has ruled out compromise on Iran's nuclear programme, but has occasionally raised hopes of a thaw in US-Iranian relations, as he did yesterday when he insisted that an Iranian-American journalist, sentenced by an Iranian court to eight years in prison on espionage charges(_http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/19/iran-america-journalist-sentence), should be guaranteed the full right to defend herself in her appeal. The Iranian government today urged Obama not to comment on the case.

Comments: I read some report that said that after Ahmadinejad's speech, the remaining majority appropriately aplauded him. Oh, the weakness of the EU federation in the face of a small country in the middle-east...
 
This was posted earlier today -  http://www.sott.net/articles/show/182362-Iran-leader-sparks-walkout-at-U-N-meeting  -- and looks like another 'disruption' by Israeli factions in the audience...  'by way of deception thou shalt wage war'...
 
UN walkout as Ahmadinejad calls Israel racist

_http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6136165.ece

The UN’s second conference on racism descended into farce yesterday when President Ahmadinejad of Iran used his address to single out Israel as the “most cruel and racist regime”.

Dozens of angry European diplomats, including the British delegation, stormed out as Mr Ahmadinejad used a rambling speech in Geneva to condemn the US and Europe for establishing Israel after the Second World War.

He said: “Following World War II, they resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering.

“They sent migrants from Europe, the United States and other parts of the world in order to establish a totally racist government in the occupied Palestine. In fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine.”

The Iranian President was the only head of state to attend the anti-racism conference, to which most countries did not even send ministers, and his appearance there had all the hallmarks of an election stump speech.

In his 30-minute address, punctuated by walkouts, applause and the ejection of three protesters dressed as circus clowns, Mr Ahmadinejad condemned Israel as a racist state masquerading as a religious one. “The word Zionism personifies racism that falsely resorts to religion and abuses religious sentiments to hide their hatred,” he thundered.

He went on to suggest that the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was also part of a Zionist plot. “Wasn’t the military action against Iraq planned by the Zionists and their allies in the US Administration then, in complicity with the arms manufacturing companies, and the owner of the world?” he asked.

Western diplomats walked out of the conference hall, following through on threats that they would leave if the meeting were hijacked by anti-Semitic rhetoric. David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, who did not attend, condemned the remarks as “offensive, inflammatory and utterly unacceptable”, adding that “such hate-filled rhetoric is an intolerable abuse of free speech and of the conference”.

Mr Ahmadinejad’s address — his first on the global stage since President Obama’s inauguration — deals a serious blow to hopes of American rapprochement with Iran, a key plank of the new President’s foreign policy. The US was one of eight Western nations that joined Israel in boycotting the conference.

While condemning Mr Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric, Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, confirmed that Washington was still seeking to talk directly with Iran.

However, the latest tirade will do nothing to help Mr Obama to persuade Israel or his domestic critics that he knows how to deal with Mr Ahmadinejad, who is seeking re-election in June with the support of the hardline ruling clergy.

Some had hoped that Mr Ahmadinejad might show restraint amid signs of a thawing of relations with Washington that is already at risk after the jailing of the American journalist Roxana Saberi. But his performance suggested that he felt confident he had the upper hand in any future negotiations over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, condemned Mr Ahmadinejad’s “hate speech” but was left embarrassed by earlier remarks in which he expressed “profound disappointment” at the boycott and by the admission that he had “gently warned” the Iranian President against attacking Israel.

The conference, dubbed Durban II, followed a similar event in the South African city in 2001. That gathering was marred by furious rows after Arab and African nations tried to hijack it to seek slavery reparations and cast the Middle East conflict as a struggle against Israeli racism.

Israel, which recalled its ambassador in protest at the decision by President Merz of Switzerland to meet Mr Ahmadinejad, expressed its disgust that a platform was afforded to the Iranian leader. Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, accused Mr Ahmadinejad of distorting history.

He said: “Israel will not allow Holocaust deniers to carry out another Holocaust against the Jewish people.”
 
France and Britain attended but promised to walk out of the conference if offensive language was used at the podium.

France's foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, speaking before Ahmadinejad's speech, said "we will not tolerate any blunder or provocation" from Ahmadinejad, who has referred to the Holocaust as a myth and called for Israel to be "wiped off the pages of history".

A flurry of late-night telephone calls between European foreign ministries...

(My bold)

These quotes go some way to confirming what I suspected when I read the ITN report - that this action by all the usual suspects had already been planned in advance, regardless of the actual content of President Ahmedinejad's speech. They would have found some reason to flounce out, osit.

It seems to me that all these so-called UN ambassadors are either Ashkenazi or shabbat goys - they're all singing the same 'anti-semitism' hymn. Even if they really believe in this particular brand of 'anti-semitism', what they did was bad manners and hypocrisy, to say the least! A complete lack of basic common courtesy that no ambassador worth his fat pay cheque would fall victim to.

When the US and Britain were criticised by Human Rights groups for their dealings with China, considering China's massive human rights violations in Tibet, the answer was (from GWB, I believe), and I paraphrase; 'If we engage with the Chinese, we can better influence them concerning human rights, and bring positive change from within. They won't change their way of thinking if we ignore them.' This would not apply to Iran or its president, because they are pariahs on the world stage, and will not do as they're told!

Where was Hugo Chevez, btw? Wasn't he there?
 
bedower said:
France and Britain attended but promised to walk out of the conference if offensive language was used at the podium.

What was offensive about his language? No expletives, nothing anti Semitic that I heard.
Lets not forget that for nearly 20 years the UN had regarded that Zionism is a form of racism; so why would it not be acceptable to re-evaluate the topic at an international conference on racism???

Quote deconstructed...

"France and Britain attended but threatened to disrespect and show dishonor towards the conference if anything was said that they did not like but could not be challenged based on fact"
 
The 23 countries that walked out of the Geneva Conference during Ahmadinejad’s speech are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK. The 27 EU members are the above plus Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland, which had already decided not to send delegates at all. The other 5 countries which had already decided not to send delegates at all are Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand and the US. So the formula for the bloc claiming that Ahmadinejad is ‘racist’ is: EU, plus Israel, plus the surviving ‘Anglo-Saxon’ or ‘English-speaking’ — i.e., white colonial — states: Australia & New Zealand, the USA & Canada. It seems then that this bloc is no more nor less than the white, western colonialist and imperialist nations, with Israel acting as their convenor, and that to be opposed to white, western colonialism and imperialism is the real definition of ‘racism’ in their eyes.

source: _http://niqnaq.wordpress.com/2009/04/24/the-key-to-the-opposition-to-ahmadinejad/
 
... So for the most part the nations that left the conference have all historically been on the giving end of Racism/Colonialism, while the ones that stayed for the conference have been on the receiving end... So instead of having a conference on Racism we get a lesson on Guilt and Denial and Transference!!! A lie begs for the truth and the truth reveals the liars.
 
[quote author=Happyville yesterday] So for the most part the nations that left the conference have all historically been on the giving end of Racism/Colonialism, while the ones that stayed for the conference have been on the receiving end... [/quote]

Good grief, yes! Anglo-Saxon British and everyone else until 1946, when India at last gained independence; now it's Britain and everyone else except for the US, Israel and the EU and Commonwealth countries - The US and everyone else except Israel - (White) Canada and everyone else except for the US, Israel, the EU and Commonwealth countries - (White) Australia and everyone else except for Anglo-Saxon Britain, the US, Israel, (White) New Zealand and everyone else except for the US, Israel, the EU and Commonwealth countries - the EU and everyone else, unless they're white and Christian, and except for the US and Israel - etc, etc and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all!

This leaves:

Native Americans (Various tribes and clans)
Native Canadians (Various tribes and clans)
Native Australians (Aborigines)
Native New Zealanders (Maoris)
India (well, we got out of there!)
The Near East (We only wanted that because the French were after it!)
The Middle East (but they've still got our oil!)
The Far East (well, we'll deal with them coolies, but only because there's money in it for us!)

And so on, and drearily so on.

It looks really bad written down in black and white like that, but the truth of the above quote has already been noticed on other blogs. So you're not alone in your observation, Happyville. Great minds think alike, eh?

:cool2:
 

Trending content

Back
Top Bottom