Freedom From Speech Editorial Wed. Nov 26, 2008

Freedom From Speech
Editorial
Wed. Nov 26, 2008
http://www.forward.com/articles/14624/

The United Nations saw another shred of its tattered dignity stripped away
November 24, when a committee of the General Assembly approved what amounts
to a direct assault on Western liberal democracy. In an 85-50 vote, with 42
abstaining, the so-called Third Committee adopted a resolution, submitted
by a caucus of Islamic nations, to criminalize expressions deemed to be
“defamation of religion,” with special concern for Islam. All U.N. member
states would be called on to amend their criminal codes accordingly. The
measure’s next stop is the General Assembly, where it is expected to win
handily, probably in December.

The U.N. is no stranger to assaults on decency and common sense. Indeed,
the new ban on religious defamation is essentially a restatement of a
measure approved by the General Assembly last year but barely noticed at
the time.

What makes this year’s resolution different, and more dangerous, is that it
is supposed to move on from the General Assembly to another forum, where it
might acquire real teeth: the second World Conference Against Racism,
Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, scheduled to
convene next April in Geneva.

Many legal scholars believe that the decisions of international conferences
of this sort can be incorporated into international law, putting them under
the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Individual nations
could not be forced to amend their laws, but they might find Interpol
knocking at their doors, serving them extradition requests to hand over
their cartoonists and novelists. Stand-up comics and philosophers might
find they’re unable to cross international borders for fear of being
arrested and remanded for trial in Jordan or Malaysia.

The Geneva conference is planned as a follow-up to the first world
conference against racism, which took place in early September 2001 in
Durban, South Africa. That meeting did some serious work, but it was
memorably upstaged by a parallel gathering of nongovernmental activists,
who staged a noisy show of anti-Israel and antisemitic speech-making,
rallies and parades, all under U.N. auspices. And, of course, a week later,
on September 11, 2001, all hell broke loose.

The years since then have not been kind to the spirit of reconciliation
supposedly invoked at Durban. It has been a decade of intense friction
between the West and the Muslim world, of invasions and terrorism, of
cartoon wars, eavesdropping, beheadings, Guantanamo and intifada. The
religious defamation ban is part of an effort by Muslim nations to retake
the initiative. The resolution, which is being pushed by the Organization
of the Islamic Conference, is seen as winning back some of Islam’s lost
stature in world opinion and offering some protection to Muslim minorities
in increasingly suspicious Western societies. The idea, it seems, is to
reduce Western suspicion of Islam by outlawing criticism.

The Muslim charm campaign also features an escalation of hostility toward
Israel. The package of resolutions prepared for debate and adoption in
Geneva breaks new ground in diplomatic Israel-bashing. It accuses Israel of
crimes against humanity, of practicing “a new kind of apartheid” and —
apparently for the first time in a formal document — “a form of genocide.”

It’s a risky game the Islamic countries are playing. They may have
overestimated the strength of its automatic majority at the U.N. The
resolution on religious defamation, for example, failed to win a majority
in the committee this year and passed only by a plurality. That is, a
majority of U.N. members refused to support the Islamic nations’ proposal,
a rare setback. The 85 votes the ban did secure represent a sharp decline
from last year, when the same measure received 108 votes.

Also facing unexpected resistance is the anti-Israel draft language.
Efforts are underway to organize a Western boycott of the Geneva conference
if the anti-Israel language is not softened. Canada has already announced
plans to stay away. On Capitol Hill, Jewish and black representatives are
working together to line up support in the administration and in various
African capitals to reject the defamation ban. France is flatly threatening
to stay home if the anti-Israel language is not changed, and French
President Nicolas Sarkozy is said to be reaching out to other European
leaders to close ranks.

Surprisingly, Saudi Arabia is leading its own behind-the-scenes effort,
with moderate Arab states, to soften the anti-Israel language and prevent a
Western boycott, according to several close U.N. watchers. Saudi King
Abdullah is said to view the extreme anti-Israel rhetoric as an Iranian
ploy to alienate the West and sabotage the conference. Abdullah favors
cooperation with the West, and he fears Iran. That’s why he’s offered his
own peace plan, convened an inter-religious dialogue and invited Israeli
President Shimon Peres to his recent New York tolerance forum. Abdullah
can’t boycott Geneva, but he can work quietly within the Islamic bloc to
cut out the worst Israel-bashing. But he needs something to show the folks
back home that he is defending the faith. Some diplomats speculate that he
might accept a ban with fewer teeth.

If Europe, America and their close allies were to skip Geneva en masse, the
conference would become a gathering of Third World nations rather than a
world forum, and the proceedings would lose their significance. That would
hurt sub-Saharan Africa, where the Durban process is cherished as a
long-delayed acknowledgement of African suffering under colonialism. The
prospect of a boycott, then, puts pressure on the Africans to find a way of
softening their Muslim allies’ stance.

No one, however, has more to lose than Europe. European leaders view the
Durban process as a form of penance for their role in Africa, and they’re
anxious to see progress at Geneva. On the other hand, Europe is home to
large and restive Muslim minorities, and the clash of cultures puts
tolerance to the test daily. Friction between traditionalist and sometimes
militant Muslims and the freewheeling societies of Denmark and the
Netherlands has already led to crisis and bloodshed. Legislating absolute
protection for religious sensibilities without equal protection for
secular, democratic beliefs would tilt the playing field against the
European democracies as they struggle to defend their values on their own
home turf. But holding firm could undermine Abdullah, arguably the best
hope for reconciliation.