Students rally while Mahmoud rants

By Yaffi Spodek Issue of April 24, 2009 / 30 Nissan 5769 Several HAFTR students joined a small crowd of activists at Dag Hammerskjold Plaza Monday afternoon to protest the United Nations' failure to address human rights abuses. "The purpose of the demonstration was to protest the silence of the UN regarding human rights violations around the world and the UN's continued demonization of Israel," explained Avi Posnick of StandWithUs, an Israel advocacy organization which planned the rally together with New York Board of Rabbis, AMCHA, the David Project and the Orthodox Union. Posnick, the East Coast community outreach director of StandWithUs and a Rambam alumnus, spoke at the rally, which also included remarks by Congressman Scott Garrett (R-New Jersey), Rabbi Joseph Potasnik of the New York Board of Rabbis, and Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels and a talk show host on WABC-AM. The rally was timed to coincide with the first day of the UN Human Rights Council's controversial Durban II conference in Geneva, Switzerland. "We are also upset regarding the hypocrisy of the current conference in Geneva; a conference whose stated purpose is to fight racism and discrimination, yet it was planned and chaired by some of the biggest human rights violators in the world," Posnick told The Jewish Star. "The fact that [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad was the main speaker at the conference and used the floor to call Zionism racism is utter hypocrisy and goes totally against the foundations and ideals of the UN." In his speech Ahmadinejad called Israel a "most cruel and racist regime ... founded on a pretext of Jewish suffering," but his words did not go unchallenged. As he began to talk about Israel, 23 delegates, including those from Jordan and the European Union, stood and walked out in protest. The United States and seven other nations were not present having already boycotted the event over anti-Israel language in the conference's main document. The other boycotting countries are Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand and Poland. Following the New York rally Rabbi Zev Friedman, Rosh HaYeshiva of HAFTR, found the dissent encouraging. "The tide may be turning. People are recognizing that this is not a human rights conference. It basically is a farce. It's becoming the United Nations, united against Israel. But it has deviated from its mission of promoting world peace." Three French students, identified by The Jerusalem Post as Rafael Haddad, Jonathan Hayoun and Jeremy Cohen, also interrupted Ahmadinejad. As he began to speak they slipped on clown wigs and shouted "Racist!" at him. They were escorted from the conference by United Nations security officers. Demonstrations were being held in Geneva for the duration of the conference. StandWithUs planned to post up to the minute live updates of the events using Twitter, the social networking platform, which can be accessed at twitter.com/standwithus.