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Mideast Overshadows U.N. Race Conference NewsMax.com WiresDURBAN, South Africa - The Middle East crisis continues to overshadow the U.N. racism conference. Delegates continued to work late Friday to avoid a U.S. boycott. Officials in Washington have warned that the U.S. delegation will quit the conference if anti-Israeli provisions were not removed from its final declaration. Israel downgraded its delegation because it views the meeting as a move to delegitimize the Jewish nation. Instead of senior politicians, a team of junior diplomats was sent to represent Israel at the conference. "This conference is taking the shape of an anti-Semitic meeting," Moni Mordechai, media adviser to Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior, told United Press International on Friday. "The atmosphere in the street, at the conference ... and its inability to remove [offensive] clauses, left us no choice but to send clerks." U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the world Friday to formulate practical measures for fighting racism. In his opening speech at the U.N. World Conference against Racism, Annan acknowledged that the issue of racism was "hurtful to both Jews and Palestinians." More than 150 countries, with a total of 6,000 delegates, are attending the conference. It began Friday after weeks of wrangling over the Middle East conflict, demands for reparations for slavery and the Indian caste system. The United States and Canada have refused to send high-level delegations because of a draft declaration equating Zionism with racism. Although the Arab nations backing the draft later withdrew it, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell decided not to attend. Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved.
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