NoisyRoom.net

By: Fern Sidman

April 13 – New York – The American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists has announced that they will be holding a week long counter-conference in New York City from April 20-24 as a response to the upcoming UN sponsored Durban II conference to he held in Geneva, Switzerland. While the purported agenda of the Durban II conference includes addressing such issues as “racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance” it appears that the Durban II conference will be a replication of the Durban I conference that was held in 2001. At that notoriously anti-Israel hate fest, both representatives from Israel and the USA walked out in defiance of the libelous propaganda being promulgated against Israel. Besides labeling Israel as an apartheid state, other metaphors reminiscent of Nazi incitement were also extolled.

Concerning those countries involved in planning the agenda for the Durban II conference, Anne Bayefsky of the EYEontheUN.org web site and the Hudson Institute issued a report dated April 7 that states, “the most active participants by a huge margin are the member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference [OIC]. And right at the top of the OIC’s star contributors — in a meeting to combat intolerance — is Iran. That’s the country where homosexuality is a capital offence, women are stoned to death for alleged adultery, and whose president openly advocates the murder of 5 million Jews.”

Bob Weinberg, former president of the AAJLJ said, “As to what will occur at the Durban II conference in Geneva, we are under no illusions. The Durban II conference will symbolize a devolution of venalities from Durban I and we expect that every sophistical argument under the sun will be used against Israel in order to further the demonization of the Jewish state that is already in full swing. This is why we feel compelled to sponsor a counter-conference that will answer all the gross distortions, half truths and bald face lies that will be leveled against Israel especially in terms of their treatment of the Palestinians.”

Mr. Weinberg said that the conference which is being co-sponsored by 20 major American Jewish organizations including the American Jewish Committee, the Anti Defamation League, the American Zionist Movement and the Yale Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism will take place at Fordham University Law School, on East 62nd Street off of Columbus Avenue in New York from Monday, April 20th to Friday, April 24th. The sessions will be held from noon to 2:00 pm on April 20, 21, 23 and 24 and from 4pm to 6pm on April 22nd. The public is invited and admission is free.

Among those addressing the Durban II counter-conference will be the Honorable Irwin Cotler, former Minister of Justice of Canada and Ambassador Richard Schifter, former US representative in the UN Human Rights Commission. A featured speaker on the topic of honor killings of women in the Muslim world will be Jewish Press op-ed contributor, Dr. Phyllis Chesler, Professor Emerita of Psychology and Women’s Studies at the City University of New York and author of 13 books including, “The New Anti-Semitism”.

For further information please visit the AAJLJ web site at www.jewishlawyers.org or contact Bob Weinberg at bob.weinberg@aya.yale.edu or by phone at 703-534-3919.