Backing President George W. Bush's possible boycott of a UN conference on racism, the US House of Representatives on Monday urged the conference to avoid "disruptive" debates on whether Zionism amounts to racism, according to a report by Haaretz.
The Republican-led House voted 408-3 for a non-binding resolution calling the United Nations conference on racism and xenophobia "a unique opportunity to address global discrimination."
But the resolution said efforts by some countries to use the conference to "resuscitate the divisive and discredited notion equating Zionism with racism ... would undermine the goals and objectives of the conference."
The White House on Friday raised the possibility of a boycott of the UN conference to be held August 31-September 7 in Durban, South Africa. Spokesman Ari Fleischer said a group of "third world nations" was trying to "hijack" the conference by including discussions about whether Zionism amounts to racism.
The United States has threatened to boycott the conference if the agenda included talk of reparations for slavery and colonialism or a measure equating Zionism with racism.
According to AFP, Washington did not attend two previous UN racism conferences, in 1978 and 1983, because of the Zionism issue.
"The months leading up to the conference have opened up deep fissures on a number of sensitive issues," UN chief Kofi Annan was quoted as saying by the agency.
"If this conference is to succeed there is an acute need for common ground. The conference must help heal old wounds without reopening them; it must confront the past, but most importantly it must help set a new course against racism in the future," he said.
Meanwhile, Israel Radio reported that the House also called on the United Nations to hand over the video tape in its possession which includes footage related to the capture by Hizbollah of three Israeli soldiers on the northern border in October last year.
The United Nations admitted last month that its peacekeeping force in south Lebanon made a videotape several hours after the kidnapping took place, showing vehicles used by Hizbollah in the operation.
Israel is demanding an unedited version of this tape, while the UN is only willing to show an edited version in which the faces of those filmed are blurred.
There has been some speculation that the Indian contingent in the UN peacekeeping force collaborated with Hizbollah in kidnapping the Israeli soldiers.
But India said that these claims were "neither substantiated nor confirmed." – Albawaba.com
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