This is a guest post from Alex Dwek who is at the Durban Review conference.

Iranian president Ahmadinejad has just left Tehran on his way to Geneva for the UN Durban Review Conference.

Before he left he found the time to tell reporters that racism is the great problem of the world and the front-mover of racist ideology is the Zionist regime. Zionists have dominated the main media and monetary centers of the world to plunder nations by threats, smearing campaign and  psychological war, he said.

“Today the behavior of the US officials and Europe’s parties and governments are dominated by Zionists, they have monetary and financial systems of the world and have kept nations in poverty and direct their money and fortune to their pockets.”

Ahmadinejad is due to give a speech at the conference tomorrow voicing Iran’s views on combating racism. He will also hold talks with Switzerland’s senior officials, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Secretary General of Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu.

The Netherlands are the latest country to withdraw from the anti-racism conference. They refuse to accept the first paragraph of the newly drafted document which seeks to reaffirm the entire document passed at Durban I, which singled out Israel and equated Zionism to racism. The list of boycotters now include Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Israel and the US.

Members of the European Union are set to meet this afternoon to discuss participation in the conference.

Alex is an Economics and Politics student at the University of Manchester. He represents the University of Manchester at the National Union of Jewish students. He is in Geneva as part of a world Jewish student task force and will report for Oy Va Goy throughout the week.