Antisemitism as a Specific Phenomenon - Journal for the Study of ...

62 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM [ VOL. 1:59
Campaigns were proposed to launch international legal measures to
reclaim Palestinian property. An initiative was proposed regarding water by
highlighting the supposed distinction between Israeli swimming pools and
the “meager amount available for Palestinian olive trees.”
Countermeasures were discussed against those attempting to criminalize
the boycott. Concrete examples reportedly mentioned an attack in Ireland
on commercial and military suppliers to Israel: Demonstrators
apparently damaged computers, bound for Israel, at the Raytheon factory,
There was debate on construction of a European resistance movement,
based on the notion that “we are all Hizbollah, we are all Hamas. . . The
world stopped Nazism, the world stopped Apartheid, we will stop
Zionism.”
PR experts analyzed language for campaigns, recommending focus on
“population transfer” and caution in using the Nazi analogy, as this opens
the campaign to charges of antisemitism.
Badil suggested that South Africa and Israel not be presented as analogies,
but added that the Apartheid experience was applicable as it identified
“a program of racial engineering.” He continued, “Race, colour, family,
descent, are related concepts. The Jew, by virtue of descent, has taken rights
over the land that non Jews do not share. . . Jewish supremacy or Zionism
through nationality or peoplehood has been the basis for ethnic cleansing.”
Participants were eager to find ways to structure shared campaigns and
resources after the conclusion of the Durban Review Conference.
COMMENTS:
“The tragedy is that so much hate was concentrated on maximizing
harm to the Jewish State rather than focusing on issues of racism and discrimination
in the Middle East. . . Where were the women, trade unionists,
writers, homosexuals, and indeed Christians and other religious minorities
to lament the violation of their counterparts’ fundamental rights in Palestine
and Iran Why did this gathering not condemn the scheduled visit of Iranian
President Ahmadinejad in view of his genocidal statements, his patronage
of terrorism, his denial of the Holocaust, and his country’s nuclear
designs”
“This event was yet another example of Durban II’s bankruptcy and its
kowtowing to tyrants.”
The NGO Civil Society Forum March against Racism, groups of
Tamils, Kurdish victims of the Iraqi Halabja gassing, and sexual diversity
activists clustered at the demonstration edges. Dalits (Indian “Untouchables”)
were segregated across a busy intersection. At the Wiesenthal