The Durban Conference against racism in 2001 had been marred by anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli rhetoric, but there was to be no repetition. The pro-Israel lobby was out in force for the follow up conference held in Geneva from 20 to 24 April. They fought back with a dizzying combination of spin, rhetoric and misinformation.

Rottweiler-in-chief of the counter- attack, Anne Bayefski, was particularly effective, leaving even friends of Israel dazed and battered at the roadside. The UN, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Conference organizers, mainstream NGOs and European governments were all grist for her paranoid, vituperative mill. For Bayefski, the willingness of anyone to organize or attend an anti-racism conference exposed their anti-Israeli bias. The choice of opening date for the conference, Holocaust Memorial Day, 20 April, was for Bayefski cynically chosen to commemorate Hitler’s birthday. Even the walkout by 23 Western delegations when Ahmadinejad attacked Israel was marred for Bayefski because the delegates returned to the hall when Ahmadinejad had left, thus lending credibility to the conference.

For those of us who defend the right of Israel to exist and deplore the fact that Israel is repeatedly singled out for condemnation in the Human Rights Council, the presence of our far-right “allies” has been a profound embarrassment.

Fortunately most western States decided to ignore the calls for a boycott, and Norway, alone among the Western democracies, sent a ministerial-level delegation. Without Norway, Iranian President Ahmadinejad would have had a clear run, virtually unopposed, and Bayefski’s prophecy – that the conference would become an anti-Israeli hate-fest – would have become self- fulfilling. In the event, on the first day only the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, stood up to the Iranian – and he wiped the floor with him:

“I heard the messages in the [Iranian] President’s speech – and they amount to incitement of hatred, spreading politics of fear and promoting an indiscriminate message of intolerance… The Iranian President’s allegations run counter to the very spirit and dignity of this conference... Through his message the president has made Iran the odd man out. And Norway will not accept that the odd man out hijacks the collective effort of the many… We will not surrender the floor of the United Nations to the extremists.”

The conference had actually been saved in March when a new draft outcome document had appeared, cleansed of toxic passages that had demonized Israel, demanded curbs on “defamation” of religion, and criticized freedom of expression.

Nevertheless, for those of us who are seriously concerned about human rights, the final text did remain seriously flawed, not by what it contained, but by what it didn’t.

After waiting in the wings for four days, IHEU was finally called upon, both in the plenary and in front of the TV cameras, to comment on the successes and failures of the conference.

Roy W. Brown is IHEU main representative at the UN in Geneva