Shalom %%First Name%%,

We had a truly amazing experience this week, as we joined our Jewish brethren in Evian and Geneva. We were there to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the infamous Evian conference of 1938, to raise high placards of protest in solidarity with Israel and to voice our opposition to the anti-Semitic Durban II conference that was taking place just across from the UN Headquarters.

The Evian Conference - Hitler's Green Light for Genocide

On Tuesday, at the main synagogue in Evian, we met with several foreign dignitaries who had come to ask for forgiveness for their nations' indifference to the thousands of Jews who had begged for assistance to flee Nazi Germany. This was an especially moving event as one of the parliament members from France shed genuine tears of repentance. As she cried, she acknowledged the sins of her nation, that closed its door of hope in the faces of the desperate Jewish refugees who subsequently perished in the Holocaust 70 years ago.

"Nobody wants them," claims the German newspaper Völkischer following the Evian Conference in July 1938. A gloating Hitler said, "It is a shameful spectacle to see how the whole democratic world is oozing sympathy for the poor tormented Jewish people, but remains hard-hearted and obdurate when it comes to helping them..."

The UN Hypocrisy

The UN Durban II Conference provided a shameful platform for Iranian president Ahmadinejad, on the anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birthday. Ahmadinejad opened the confrence by denying the Holocaust by stating that the "Zionist regime" had been created "on the pretext of Jewish sufferings and the ambiguous and dubious question of holocaust." He spoke like a Hitler of our time: "the egoist and uncivilized Zionists have been able to deeply penetrate into their political and economic structure including their legislation, mass media, companies, financial systems, and their security and intelligence agencies. They have imposed their domination to the extent that nothing can be done against their will. As long as they are at the helm of power, justice will never prevail in the world. It is time the ideal of Zionism, which is the paragon of racism, to be broken. The world Zionism personifies racism that falsely resorts to religion and abuse religious sentiments to hide their hatred and ugly faces."

Swiss President Metz welcomes Ahmadinejad with open arms to Geneva

It was during this speech that many participating countries that had not chosen to boycott the conference stood up and walked out. Thank God for the 10 nations that chose not to participate in this second Durban hate fest: Canada, Israel, the United States, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Holland, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic.

What is particularly distressing is that all the negative focus on Israel has diverted attention from an issue that needs much attention. What happened to addressing the very real problems of discrimination and intolerance in our world? Unfortunately it has been far easier for countries with some of the world's worst human rights records - Libya, Saudi Arabia and Iran, for instance - to point accusatory fingers at Israel.

This negative obsession with Israel - the only democracy in the Middle East - is completely out of proportion. Blatant racism, human rights violations and intolerances by numerous nations go undeterred and unremarked upon, while Israel is vilified. Women are forbidden to congregate publicly in Iran and are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, North Koreans are starving to death and in Darfur, hundreds of thousands have been murdered and millions displaced. Somehow these transgressions are excused or ignored.

One interesting protest flyer I received at the Durban II conference