B’nai B’rith International commends every country that declined to participate in the United Nations General Assembly’s (UNGA) “high-level commemoration” today of the 25th anniversary of the 2001 World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa. That conference became notorious for its shocking manifestations of antisemitism, and today’s commemoration reaffirmed the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA), which singled out Israel for implicit branding as racist. Street mobs at Durban, and a hijacked forum of nongovernmental organizations there, went even further—presaging the viral global anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist bigotry of today.

True to form, Iran—the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and one of the most oppressive regimes anywhere—attacked Zionism at today’s commemoration as “a doctrine of supremacy” while praising the DDPA as “the most comprehensive blueprint the United Nations has ever produced against racism.”

B’nai B’rith, which led Jewish participation in the original Durban conference and its follow-up meetings, has campaigned for U.N. member states to boycott a forum that undermines genuine efforts against prejudice by tainting it with antisemitic discrimination and hate. B’nai B’rith’s U.N. representatives directly asked world leaders attending the UNGA last week to decline participation, reached out to governments beforehand and urged members to do the same, and repeatedly spoke out at the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) as an officially accredited civil society group there. The UNHRC promotes the DDPA during each of its sessions.

On the actual 25th anniversary of the Durban outrage, B’nai B’rith aired a special program this month in cooperation with Jerusalem News Syndicate (JNS), viewable here, in which ranking diplomats and experts recounted the animus and extremism put on stark display in South Africa in 2001. B’nai B’rith resources on Durban may be found at www.bnaibrith.org/durban.

We are gratified that an array of countries, led by the United States, did the right thing and chose not to lend legitimacy to the disgraceful Durban framework.

However, too many governments undercut credible work against racism—and bolstered chronic exploitation of the U.N. as a political weapon against the world’s only Jewish state—by participating in the event. Inexcusably, these included a country like France—which broke from a strong prior consensus among democracies and has escalated its focus on excoriating Israel at the U.N. despite unabated antisemitism domestically. Another country, Ghana—despite longstanding, deeply beneficial bilateral ties with Israel—echoed, in its statement at today’s summit, the outrageous libel of “genocide” in Gaza. Malaysia, which does not recognize Israel and discriminates against Israelis on account of their nationality, did the same.

That falsehood epitomizes how wild rhetoric not only maligns Israelis but triggers anti-Jewish hostility, obscures the violence of Israel’s relentless enemies and renders invisible true victims of racial supremacist ideologies worldwide.