To the Editor,

An international conference on racism is going on, but you’d hardly know it from reading the Washington Post. There has been no in-depth analysis of the Durban Review Conference on Racism, this week in Geneva. The conference was convened as a follow-up to 2001 racism conference that degenerated into an anti-Israel and anti-Semitic gathering. And once again, a U.N. conference meant to take on a serious issue has been hijacked by groups with nefarious motives.

But the Post has barely mentioned these events, and certainly has not given the conference the context it deserves.

The planning and execution of this conference included the same unrelenting focus on Israel and the same anti-Semitic proclamations as the original.

Why isn’t the Post calling attention to the hypocrisy of the nations calling the shots in Geneva? Why isn’t the Post noting that nations with some of the world’s worst human rights records such as Iran, Zimbabwe, and Libya – are diverting attention from their own records in their unrelenting obsession with Israel?

Global racism and intolerance are issues that require serious attention. The conference has again squandered an opportunity to improve the lives of many around the world, and the Post has squandered an opportunity to enlighten its readers on a serious subject.

Richard D. Heideman and Daniel S. Mariaschin are writing from Geneva.

Mr. Heideman, a noted Washington, D.C. attorney, is Honorary President of B’nai B’rith International and leads B’nai B’rith’s delegation in Geneva. Mr. Mariaschin is Executive Vice President of B’nai B’rith International, an accredited NGO with special consultative status, that has been involved at the United Nations since its inception in 1945.