rich 1.0 Action Network https://actionnetwork.org <link href='https://actionnetwork.org/css/style-embed-v3.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' /><script src='https://actionnetwork.org/widgets/v6/petition/pull-out-of-uns-antisemitic-durban-25-meeting?format=js&source=widget'></script><div id='can-petition-area-pull-out-of-uns-antisemitic-durban-25-meeting' style='width: 100%'><!-- this div is the target for our HTML insertion --></div> UN Watch https://actionnetwork.org/users/un-watch/profile https://can2-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/petitions/photos/000/800/066/normal/Pull_Out_of_Antisemitic_UN_Durban_V_Meeting_(1).png We are outraged to learn that the United Nations, at a General Assembly meeting in New York on September 28, 2026, will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Durban conference — a notorious antisemitic hatefest that took place in September 2001. Unless that meeting officially and expressly renounces the elements of the Durban Declaration that single out and demonize Israel, as well as the extreme antisemitic events that took place in the lead-up to and surrounding the Durban conference, all governments should refuse to participate or otherwise legitimize the UN’s “Durban 25” meeting. The Durban process, since its inception at the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, has included ugly displays of intolerance and antisemitism. The lead-up to the 2001 Durban Conference paved the way for today’s antisemitic blood libels, producing one of the most scurrilous documents relating to Israel and the Jewish people to appear since World War II. The February 2001 Asian regional meeting in Tehran, held in preparation for the Durban conference, concluded by accusing the Jewish state of committing “a new kind of apartheid,” “a crime against humanity” and “a form of genocide.” The Durban Conference itself, held between 31 August to 7 September 2001, was marred by language singling out Israel in the final text of the Durban Declaration, and in the plenary. PLO chairman Yasser Arafat told conference delegates of the “ugliness” of “Israeli racist policies and practices against the Palestinian people.” Cuban dictator Fidel Castro spoke of “the dreadful genocide perpetrated, at this very moment, against our Palestinian brothers.” At the parallel NGO Forum, non-governmental organizations declared Israel a “racist apartheid state” that was guilty of “genocide.” At a nearby Palestinian-led march with thousands of participants, placards read “Hitler Should Have Finished the Job.” On sale in the exhibition area was the most notorious of anti-Jewish tracts, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” The Arab Lawyers Union distributed antisemitic cartoons reminiscent of the Nazi era. Twenty-five years later, we are now witness to a worldwide surge of anti-Jewish violence and inflammatory language that demonizes the Jewish state as uniquely evil, echoing the 2001 Tehran accusations of “genocide” and “apartheid.” Leading democracies in the free world have recognized the antisemitism of the Durban conference. In 2011, numerous countries withdrew from the UN’s 10-year commemoration of the Durban Conference (“Durban III”), including Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Likewise, in 2021, no less than 38 countries withdrew from Durban IV, the 20-year commemoration of the Durban Conference, including the U.S., Australia, Canada, Israel, the UK, Hungary, the Netherlands, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, France, Bulgaria, Italy, Croatia, New Zealand, Cyprus, Slovenia, Greece, Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine, Uruguay, Poland, Honduras, Albania, Montenegro, Georgia, Moldova, Serbia, North Macedonia, Estonia, Lithuania, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Sweden, Latvia, Denmark, and Spain. They rightly did not want to see the hateful and antisemitic displays of the 2001 Durban Conference commemorated. Accordingly, I urge all UN member states not to legitimize this 25-year commemoration event, unless there is a clear and unequivocal renunciation of the antisemitic elements of the Durban process. I am profoundly committed to combating racism, hatred, and discrimination, and to upholding human rights for all. Outside of the tainted Durban process, all nations of goodwill must continue to work in partnership to defend the principles of human dignity, equality, and tolerance. https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/pull-out-of-uns-antisemitic-durban-25-meeting