Durban II

The story from yesterday's Associated Press:

"Ad Calls on US to Skip UN Conference
By FREDERIC J. FROMMER

- WASHINGTON (AP) - Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, law professor Alan Dershowitz and former CIA Director James Woolsey are among 25 religious, academic and legal figures calling on the U.S. to skip next year's United Nations anti-racism conference in a full-page ad set to appear Thursday in four newspapers.

In the ad, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press Wednesday, the signers label the conference as anti-Semitic and urge Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to announce that the U.S. won't participate.

The ad is scheduled to run in the New York Sun and The Washington Times, as well as the political newspaper Politico and Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call.

Next year's conference is known as Durban II, a reference to the South African city that hosted the World Conference Against Racism in 2001. At that meeting, criticism of Israel prompted the U.S. and Israel to walk out.

A few months later, Israel's then-deputy foreign minister, Michael Melchior, said the conference 'hosted the most racist speeches and proposals to be heard in an international forum since World War II.' He added that 'the conference became the mouthpiece for a new and venal form of anti-Semitism.'" -more

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