Ahmadinejad Speech Triggers Walkout at UN Meet on Racism
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was back in the thick of international controversy on Monday after his speech, blaming Israel of using “Jewish suffering” as a pretext to occupy Palestinian land, triggered a walk-out by diplomats attending a United Nations conference on racism in Geneva.
“Following World War II they resorted to military aggressions to make an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering,” said Ahmadinejad, through a translator, in his address of the conference.
“And they sent migrants from Europe, the United States and other parts of the world in order to establish a totally racist government in the occupied Palestine,” he charged.
“And in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine.”
British ambassador Peter Gooderham flayed Ahmadinejad’s comments as “offensive and inflammatory” and led the temporary walk-out, which delegates said would end after the Iranian leader concluded his speech.
“Such outrageous anti-Semitic remarks should have no place in a UN anti-racism forum,” Gooderham was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Other delegates were equally vocal in their condemnation of the remarks, which Slovenian ambassador Andrej Logar termed “detrimental to the dignity of this conference.”
“The word Zionism personifies racism that falsely resorts to religion and abuses religious sentiments to hide their hatred and ugly faces,” Ahmadinejad told the conference.
Several delegates sat through Ahmdadinejad’s speech.
The US, Israel, Canada, Australia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and New Zealand are boycotting the week-long meeting due to fears of the conference being used as a platform for unfair criticism of Israel.
“We strongly deplore the language used by the president of Iran. In our view this speech was completely inappropriate at a conference designed to nurture diversity and tolerance,” Rupert Colville, spokesman for Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement.
Unfazed by the criticism, Ahmadinejad after the conclusion of his address told a press conference that the countries boycotting the forum were showing “arrogance and selfishness.”
Expressing disappointment over the boycott and the speech UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Ahmadinejad had used his speech “to accuse, divide and even incite.”
