Following two prior Durban Conferences, in 2001 and 2009, both of which were denounced by leading democratic nations for demonizing Israel and for providing a forum for anti-Semitism, the UN continues the charade sponsoring a Durban III conference. Stand With Us took a stand and designed a circus rally to directly respond to the hypocrisy of a Human Rights Council that has ignored real human rights issues and that has instead chosen to delegitimize and condemn Israel. Roz Rothstein, CEO of StandWithUs, explained the goal of the rally, “One good way to counter the Durban conference’s hypocritical travesty of human rights is with parody. Sometimes humor reveals the deepest truths. There is no possible rational response to the Durban conference’s perverse distortions. They are too divorced from any reality. In fact, they turn reality upside down. We plan to fight the UN ‘clowns’ with actual clowns that expose their hypocrisy.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it best, during his speech before the General Assembly recently, referring to the UN as a “theatre of the absurd;” a place where Israel is cast as the villain and where the real villains are cast in leading roles; a place where Hezbollah’s Lebanon presides over the Security Council.
Partnering with StandWithUs, the student leaders of Magen David’s Israel Activism club not only attended the rally; they played an active role. Just minutes after a passionate speech by Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, David Gindi, a Magen David senior, took the floor and energized the audience with his own message to the United Nations. David referenced the noble principles at the foundations of the UN and the Human Rights Council, principles that developed as a response to the tragedies of the Holocaust. He bemoaned the desecration of those ideals in the deligitimization of Israel that have overshadowed countless UN sessions. Igniting the crowd, David declared, “So, you’d think that the nation with the most condemnations from the Human Rights Council would be one which has practiced tyranny and persecution, one whose citizens suffer from regimes of terror and suppression. Nations like Syria and Iran, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. But no, the most condemned nation by the Human Rights Council has been the beacon of hope and the shining light of freedom and democracy in a region where repression and injustice has become the norm. The most condemned nation is the State of Israel.”
Leaving the audience with questions that reveal the hypocrisy of the Human Rights Council, he continued, “If the United States of America began an offensive to defend their homeland, would you condemn them? If France sent troops and ammunition to protect their borders, would you condemn them? If Great Britain sent its Navy to inspect a ship for rockets to be sure ammunition didn’t fall into enemy hands, would you condemn them? The answer is no. So why is it that you condemn the State of Israel for simply defending itself against those who have devoted their lives to seeing Israel annihilated? How can a body created to ensure civil liberties for all of humanity be at work to destroy a free and democratic state? And so today we protest because we believe, and the world believes, that human rights for all, must include the State of Israel.”
This rally was the first of many pro-Israel activities that Magen David’s Israel Activism club plans to be involved in. The club is scheduled to receive in-house training from StandWithUs so that students can understand the key issues and advocate effectively for Israel. Four student leaders will also be attending the three-day AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee) High School Summit where they will receive intense advocacy training and will use those skills immediately during a visit to Capitol Hill.
Magen David’s Israel Activism team not only stands for Israel, it leads the way in the search for peace, justice and a world where Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself is no longer questioned by those who seek to destroy it. A world where the deligitimization of Israel is recognized for what it actually is—an affront to the free world, to democracy and to the human rights that the UN claims to stand for.
