Durban: Strong NGO Declaration Against Israeli Apartheid

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Saturday September 1 6:54 PM ET  (via Reuters)


UPDATE-1-NGO Declaration at UN Race Meet Slams Israel

DURBAN, South Africa (Reuters) - Thousands of non-governmental organizations
(NGOs), meeting on the margin of a United Nations conference against racism,
condemned Israel early on Sunday as a "racist apartheid state."

In a final declaration, the NGO Forum accused the Jewish state of
"systematic perpetration of racist crimes including war crimes, acts of
genocide and ethnic cleansing."

The declaration, adopted after voting by 3,000 NGOs in 44 regional caucuses,
shocked Jewish groups. Western diplomats said it further soured the mood at
the World Conference Against Racism attended by 153 government delegations
in Durban, South Africa.

The Israeli government delegation to the U.N. conference blasted the NGO
resolution as an incitement to hatred of Jews. "The decision of the
conference of the NGOs adopted this morning is outright incitement, whose
only purpose is to delegitimize the Jewish state and its people," delegation
spokesman Noam Katz told Reuters.

"(It) adds fuel to the attempts that are being made to demonize Israel," he
added.

The United States has sent only a low-level delegation to the United
Nations-organized conference against racism in Durban in protest against
anti-Israeli language in draft texts.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned on Saturday that rows over Israel,
which Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat branded racist for its treatment of
Palestinians in the occupied territories, could sink the conference.

A lawyer with the Association of Palestine NGO, Tawfiq Jabareen, said: "We
want the governmental conference to adopt these documents. The Palestinian
people have a right to self-determination."

The NGO program for action -- intended to complement the actions to combat
racism being debated by the U.N. conference -- called for an international
war crimes tribunal for Israelis as well as international sanctions against
Israel.

Helen Pollock, of the Board of Deputies for British Jews, condemned the NGO
move. "To equate Zionism with racism is clearly anti-Semitic."

The NGO Forum resolution said Israel was "a racist apartheid state in which
Israel's brand of apartheid as a crime against humanity has been
characterized by separation and segregation...and inhumane acts."
 
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