April 20th is a day that lives in infamy in Europe. Few would consider Hitler’s birthday an appropriate date for a high-profile global conference against racism and intolerance. Handing over the podium to the world’s most vocal anti-Semite and Holocaust denier would also seem unconscionable. But that is exactly what the United Nations did in Geneva this spring at its follow-up to the 2001 Durban conference on racism.

Thankfully, a number of Western democratic nations boycotted Durban II, including Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland and the United States. They did so, in part, because the appearance of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as keynote speaker promised to turn Durban II into a farce. They were right!

Ahmadinejad used the occasion to accuse Israelis of being “racist perpetrators of genocide”. His speech prompted a mass walkout by 23 European countries, and rare condemnation by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. But those same diplomats duly took their seats again for three more days of slander and accusations against Israel as an oppressive, “apartheid” state.

These events took place even as Israel marked its annual Holocaust Memorial Day, Yom HaShoah, making the scenes in Geneva seem almost surreal.

Throughout this time, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem played an active role in opposing the anti-Israel agenda of Durban II while also honouring the six million Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust.

For months, the ICEJ-USA branch had been spearheading an on-line petition campaign demanding that new US President Barack Obama boycott Durban II. The grassroots effort secured some 5,000 signers and the petition was delivered to the White House four days before the UN gathering, just as Obama came under tremendous last-minute pressure from human rights groups to show up in Geneva.  He decided to stay way, however.

Meanwhile in Geneva, ICEJ national directors and activists from several European countries stood with some 2,000 Christians and Jews in a series of city-wide protests against the conference’s anti-Israel program. ICEJ representatives also took part in an alternative human rights conference in the scenic Swiss city, called “Israel Inspires”.

Meanwhile in the European capital of Prague, the ICEJ-Czech branch sponsored a public rally against anti-Semitism that featured the President of the Czech Senate, Premysl Sobotka, and Mayor Pavel Ben. Addressing the large gathering inside the national parliament, ICEJ International Director Dr. Jürgen Bühler and ICEJ-Czech national director Dr. Mojmir Kallus called on nations worldwide “to clearly distance themselves from the demonization of Israel in Geneva”. The following day, the Czech delegation walked out of the UN gathering for good, a highly symbolic move in that the Czech Republic currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union.

Not far to the north in Poland, Israeli and Jewish leaders were gathered for the annual “March of the Living” at Auschwitz, which was presented this year as an alternative to the Geneva conclave. There at the infamous ruins of the Nazi gas ovens, some 360 European high schools students attended the ceremonies and learned about the horrors of the Holocaust under the sponsorship of the ICEJ’s Czech, Slovakian and Hungarian branches.

The ICEJ also took the battle against Durban II to the airwaves and the Internet. ICEJ Executive Director, Rev. Malcolm Hedding, drew on his own experience as a young pastor fighting racism in his native South Africa to combat the charge that Israel is an apartheid state through an on-line video – “The Myth of Israeli Apartheid”. To view this message, go to: www.icejusa.org/apartheid

Dr. Bühler also presented the message in an hour-long debate on the Arabic language satellite TV channel Alhurra.

As the dust settled on the UN’s failed attempt to resurrect the Durban process and further discredit Israel in the eyes of the world, we were reminded once again that the struggle against anti-Semitism must go on.

To that end, the ICEJ was invited two years ago to partner with Yad Vashem to create a unique program that allows Christians to stand with that institution, the most revered in Israel, as it seeks to preserve the memories and to teach the universal lessons of the Holocaust. In co-founding “Christian Friends of Yad Vashem”, we sought to provide Christians everywhere with the practical means to stand with the very entity which leads the global fight against anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial today.

In early May, the ICEJ held its annual National Directors’ Meeting in Jerusalem, and the highlight for the delegations from some 30 countries was a special visit to Yad Vashem at the invitation of its director, Avner Shalev. We were given a specially guided tour of the new Museum, as well as the opportunity to lay a wreath in the Hall of Remembrance, where ashes of Holocaust victims lie buried under an eternal flame.

In these trying times of renewed threats to wipe Israel off the map, we want to make our solidarity with the Jewish State and People very clear. There is no more effective way than by becoming a Christian Friend of Yad Vashem. Learn more about this program at our Web site, http://www.icej.org
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