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

Now the Durban Review Conference has come to a close, I thought I would provide a quick review of the key events that happened during the last three days.

On Wednesday countries were invited to make general statements to the conference. France, Sweden, Spain, Ukraine and the UK were amongst a host of nations who used this opportunity to criticise Ahmadinejad’s speech. The UK Ambassador’s statement was particularly strong saying: “My delegation left the hall not only in protest, but in solidarity with those targeted by [Ahmadinejad’s] hateful, antisemitic words.”

The Palestinian delegation announced that they were among those who walked out of the President of Iran’s speech. This was not to do with the content of the speech but rather in objection to Iran’s funding of Hamas.

One of the more interesting speeches of the day was by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay. In it, she declared that she couldn’t understand why countries had walked out of Ahmadinejad’s speech. Maybe Ms Pillay was listening to a different interpretation than the rest of the world? Or does she deem statements about Zionists controlling the monetary systems as acceptable?

At the end of the day it emerged that Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel had been called a “Zio-Nazi” by an observer from one of the NGO’s, believed to be Iranian. This was an example of some of the less than savoury characters who managed to gain entry to the conference.

During all the nation’s speeches there was not one mention of the human rights abuses occurring in Darfur or the Congo.

Thursday consisted mostly of side events, hosted by numerous NGO’s. One of the more controversial ones taking place was an event by the Islamic Human Rights Commission [IHRC] entitled ‘Old & New forms of Racism – The Case for Islamophobia’.

I had mentioned the IHRC in an earlier post as they had been the organisation that Neturei Carta were accredited with. The panel included Dr Daud Abdullah of the Muslim Council of Britain, Imam Achmad Cassiem (former prisoner on Robben Island) and Michel Warschawski, a prominent French anti-Zionist.

Of the six panelists, five were convinced that the root of all problems of Islamophobia rested in the Israel/Palestine issue. Only one, Ms. Asma Jahangir, spoke openly about stopping the politicization of human rights. She called for the audience to look at the principles of human rights and apply them everywhere

It was the end of Warschawski’s speech which I thought proved to sum up the atmosphere amongst the anti-zionist movement at the conference. “Durban II is an occasion for us to evaluate where we are in this state,” he argued. “I would say we are not in a good shape. Everything that has been going on in this conference, we are far away from Durban I, we have to admit we are on the defensive. At Durban I we were setting the agenda, here we are reacting to it.”

I think this statement really epitomizes the tone of the conference. Durban II was not the Israel ‘hate fest’ that took place in 2001. However, the assembled countries refused to talk about the genuine human rights abuses taking place all over the world. They continued to allow countries with some of the world’s worst human rights records to set the agenda. When the entire conference is chaired by Libya and co-chaired by Iran, you know that something isn’t right.

So, what next? I shall revert back to another quote from Warshawski’s speech:

“For us the challenge is Durban +10 [another anti-racism conference planned for some time after 2010]. We have two years to recollect ourselves to re-fix and improve some sort of joint agenda, for a conference which will be more like Durban I than Durban II. This will not impede on the work of the NGOs. To make this radical shift to make a new offensive Durban, it will be down to the people of this world to take the initiative to unite against injustice.”

So it seems that at Durban +10, the voices who were so prominent at Durban I will be preparing a response. Whilst I don’t jump up and down with excitement at the prospect of facing another racism conference dominated by racists, it is a fight that I don’t think any of us should back down from.

Whether you are Israel’s biggest supporter or fiercest critic, one should never accept the vile and racist rhetoric of Ahmadinejad and others. No one can justify singling out Israel as the worst committer of human rights abuses taking place any where in the world. To do this is giving free reign to the likes of President Al-Bashir of Sudan to fund the murder of 500,000 people in Darfur, and Joseph Kony of the Lords Resistance Army to abduct thousands of children and force them to take part in armed combat.

It will be interesting to see if UN calls for a Durban III in the future. If they do, I only hope that they learn from their mistakes and host a conference that does stand up to racism and seeks to address the vast amount of human rights abuses taking place worldwide.

I’m not going to hold my breath.

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 was in Geneva as part of a world Jewish student task force and reported for Oy Va Goy throughout the week.