Re: Not Just Isreal...

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 08:53 AM 9/7/01 -0400, you wrote:
>  I read the document
> quickly, but from what I could see the US was
> not treated very roughly at all.  For one thing,
> the words "United States" do not appear in the
> document.

the US was supporting its main ally in the Middle East (and it needs its
allies). If the conference highlights Israel alone, that makes the billion
dollars plus that the US has given Israel look bad.

That said, this kind of conference is pretty much a farce from the
beginning, since the declarations are not binding in any way. Yoshie said
something similar, but here goes: either it produces abstract "mom & apple
pie" declarations or it produces statements that offend one country or
another. Of course, if they'd singled out the Sudan, for example, the US
wouldn't have walked out in a huff. But some other countries would have.

It's a little like the popular image of the US Congress, in which the bills
that are produced seem to be only those that nobody's _against_  (rather
than being what a majority would favor): everyone has some sort of veto
power, but no-one has the ability to do anything positive. The Durban
conference fits this image -- and has no real power at all.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine