Eight years after its first attempt to host a global summit on racism, the U.N. is not finding much luck the second time around (maybe third time will be the charm?). Everyone's favorite, furry leader, Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, decided to use his thirty minute speech to call Israel a racist nation, which was followed by a mass walk-out of about by the 30 diplomats, including 23 E.U. member nations who are in attendance (Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Poland have boycotted the conference altogether along with the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand who describe it as a forum that is tainted with bad blood).
Certainly, Israel has not played fair in its occupation of some of the Palestinian territories, complete with some pretty atrocious behavior in its recent war in Gaza but then again, many Arab nations haven't been too active when it comes to atrocities committed by fellow leaders. Since the International Criminal Court issued its arrest warrent for Sudanese president Oman Al Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Israel's neighbors have acted as if there wasn't any sort of genocide happening in the region. In March, at the Arab Summit in Qatar, which followed the issuing of the ICC's warrant, not one of the attendees condemned Bashir and the deaths of over 300,000 in Darfur, rather supported him.
Two wrongs never make a right. Israel must answer for the illegal deaths of hundreds of innocent Palestinians but until Iran takes the lead to help bring Bashir to justice, it is no less guilty for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Darfuris than the rest of the world, which is idelly standing by.
**Photo by Erin Cunningham**
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