The Redhunter

The Wall Street Journal has the story everyone who cares about freedom of speech should read:

"Durban II," planned for April in Geneva, promises to be an encore of the same old Israel-bashing. The draft declaration says Israel's policy toward the Palestinians amounts to no less than "a new kind of apartheid, a crime against humanity, a form of genocide and a serious threat to international peace and security." We'll spare you the rest of the diatribe.

Israel will be the conference's main object of obsession, but it's not the only target. The draft declaration also goes after the West's freedom of speech and antiterror laws under the guise of protecting religion -- read: Islam -- from "defamation."

The entire West will be in the dock for allegedly persecuting Muslims. "The most serious manifestations of defamation of religions are the increase in Islamophobia and the worsening of the situation of Muslim minorities around the world," the draft reads.

"Islamophobia" is a vague term used to brand any criticism of Islam as a hate crime. The real Islamophobes, though, Islamic terrorists who have killed hundreds of thousands of their co-religionists, get a free pass.

Instead, the draft calls for a media code of conduct and "internationally binding normative standards...that can provide adequate guarantees against defamation of religions." If this sounds like censorship, that's because it is.

The conference is being organized by the U.N. Human Rights Council, which, like its discredited predecessor, the Human Rights Commission, has been taken over by several of the world's main abusers of human rights. The Organization of Islamic Countries, the most powerful voting bloc at the U.N., managed to put Libya in charge of preparing Durban II. Tripoli is being assisted by such other pillars of the international community as Iran and Cuba. Last week a key U.N. General Assembly committee passed a draft resolution, sponsored by Islamic states, that calls for national laws against the "defamation of religions."

If the Durban II drafters have their way, any challenge of Islamic teachings, including teachings used to justify violence, would be taboo. Reprinting the Danish Muhammad cartoons, exploited by Muslim agitators in 2006 to incite riots around the world, would be a criminal offense. Even gross human-rights violations in Islamic countries -- such as the stoning of adulterers in Iran -- could be immune from criticism as these practices are rooted in religion.

This cannot stand. Nothing can be exempt from challenge or criticism.

I don't like it when my religion, Christianity, is mocked. I don't like it when militant atheists such as Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins spout their nonsense about religion being not only wrong but dangerous in and of itself. I don't like it when people draw nasty cartoons about Jesus, or caricature, deride, insult, laugh at, make fun of, parody, show contempt for, or sneer at Christianity of Judaism. I myself criticize conservatives who go overboard in their attacks on Muslims and Islam.

But not for anything in the world would I take away any one's right to do any of the above.

Back To The Survey

While I do think that such nefarious reasons are part of, even much or most of the motive behind support for the UN, there are other reasons too.

Part of it is anger at Israel. It's mostly unjustified, to be sure, but it is a real motive.

A lot of it is also a feeling of impotence. With the exceptions of Iraq and Turkey, Muslims are ruled by autocrats, live in societies notorious for their corruption, and whose econonomies make our current difficulties look like paradise. Of course their frustrated. At school they learned about the glories of the Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, and Ottoman empires, and realize that those days are long gone with little chance of regaining them.

As a result of this, the colonial period, and more, they believe that Islam is "not respected." Because they also have no tradition of tolerance as we understand it, their reaction is to want laws to prevent criticism of Islam.

Their reaction is understandable, perhaps, but it must be stopped nonetheless. The WSJ article notes that "the decision about whether to send a delegation to Durban II will be an early test of Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton and the new Obama Administration." Indeed it will be. Let's hope they boycott it.