September 15, 2026
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Malicious accusations of genocide against Israel did not begin with the Hamas-Israel war. The 10/7 massacres were a catalyst in a conspiracy that began 25 years ago in South Africa – where NGO activists, hostile countries and UN officials coordinated in Durban, ending days before the 9/11 terror attacks. On Sept 28, the UN will convene a meeting in NY to mark the 25th anniversary of the Durban declaration.
The Durban conferences were designed to become a landmark in confronting racism, but instead, turned into “a hallmark of antisemitism and antizionism,” in the words of The World Jewish Congress. Participants created a set of false and vilifying charges against the world’s only Jewish state – apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide – a full generation before the war in Gaza.
These poisonous narratives have sparked an unprecedented, global firestorm of antisemitic attacks at schools, city councils, synagogues and even on sidewalks – all while demonizing Israel.
Singling out Israel
The UN’s World Conference Against Racism convened in Sept. 2001 alongside a separate forum for 7,000 NGO activists. Non-governmental organizations are nonprofit groups that operate independently of any governments to achieve their goals.
The outcome was set before the delegates arrived. The Islamic Republic of Iran chaired a preparatory meeting and refused entry to Israeli and Jewish organizations, despite assurances from the UN human rights chief. In their absence, the delegates produced a document accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing and apartheid – describing Zionism as a doctrine based on racial superiority.
The Durban conference concluded with a declaration that condemned only one country: Israel. The text “recognized the right of refugees to return” – a demand for unlimited Palestinian immigration into Israel.
The chief historian at Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust center, Dr. Dina Porat, was part of the Israeli delegation. She asked the Belgian representative chairing the sessions how the conference had turned on Israel so quickly. He explained that most delegations came from countries once under colonial rule and wanted compensation for it – and that Spain, Portugal and Belgium would be the ones paying. Then he added: “The simple solution to this problem was to pick on Israel and the Jews.”
‘The Complete and Total Isolation of Israel’
Activists harassed Jewish participants at the parallel NGO Forum. Vendors sold the antisemitic Russian screed Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and activists handed out pamphlets with Hitler’s photo asking, “What if I had won?”
The Roma – Europe’s largest ethnic minority who also were targeted by the Nazis for extermination – walked out of the Forum and condemned the Declaration’s text as antisemitic. Then-U.S. Rep. and Holocaust survivor Tom Lantos described the Durban Conference as “the most sickening display of hate for Jews I have seen since the Nazi period.”
The NGO Forum released its own declaration that also invoked the “right of return” and called for the “complete and total isolation of Israel.” The Forum declared that Israel’s “brand of apartheid” included “acts of genocide and practices of ethnic cleansing.”
The declaration also demanded that the UN reinstate its 1975 Soviet-backed resolution branding Zionism a form of racism, which it had revoked in 1991. Zionism is the right of Jews to live in their ancestral homeland.
The NGO Monitor, founded in response to the Durban conferences to track anti-Israel networks, labeled the campaign the “Durban Strategy.” The executive director of UN Watch, identified Durban as the institutional launch of Israel’s demonization as a racist state. Human rights activist and former Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, who attended the conference, said Durban turned the language of human rights into cover for antisemitism at the UN. He called it the “tipping point for the laundering of antisemitism at the UN.”
Representatives of 1,500 organizations adopted the NGO Declaration as grounds for boycotts and sanctions against Israel. Its terms moved directly into mainstream headlines, endorsed by NGO leaders including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
Both organizations have spent decades weaponizing the language of human rights against Israel. Amnesty went further in Dec. 2024, declaring Israel guilty of genocide in Gaza while acknowledging it had applied a looser standard of proof for intent than the International Court of Justice requires. Amnesty’s own Israel branch accused the international body of working toward a “predetermined outcome.”
Durban Never Ended
The NGO Declaration at Durban called for a “war crimes tribunal” to investigate the charges against Israel. Activists reached a courtroom 22 years later. On Dec. 29, 2023 – less than three months after the Oct. 7 massacres – South Africa brought a genocide case against Israel to the UN’s International Court of Justice. The case is still under review.
Maintaining the UN’s obsession with Israel, the UN Human Rights Council keeps a standing agenda item reserved for only one country: Item 7 requires every session debate Israel’s record. The HRC’s Commission of Inquiry specifically investigates Israel – with no end date.
The NGO network that drafted the Durban language has grown into an industry that promotes Islamist propaganda against the West, supports activists and feeds false stories to media organizations. NY Times columnist Nick Kristof parroted the NGO Euro‑Med Human Rights Monitor’s false claim that Israelis train dogs to rape Palestinians.
NGO Monitor has identified 157 groups in the U.S. linked by nearly 3,000 funding and partnership connections – a structured network with shared objectives. In the UK, 80% of anti-Israel protests since Oct. 7 were organized by NGOs, many with links to the Iranian regime, Hamas, Hezbollah or the Muslim Brotherhood.
25 Years Later in NY
The UN General Assembly is convening a one-day high-level meeting at its NY headquarters on Sept. 28 to mark 25 years since Durban. The UN has held the anniversary event three times before, and Western governments have boycotted in growing numbers each time – 38 withdrew in 2021. At the 2009 event, Iranian President and Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave the opening speech.
The commemoration falls during the annual UN General Assembly, when world leaders give speeches – including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani has called for protests against the Israeli leader’s visit, while acknowledging that the NYPD cannot arrest him.
The day before Netanyahu speaks, major Jewish groups are holding a rally against antisemitism directly across from UN headquarters on Sept. 23. Organizers are calling on world leaders to “act decisively to stop the growing tide of antisemitism.” Sponsors include the Anti-Defamation League, Conference of Presidents, Israeli-American Council and StandWithUs.
Israel UN ambassador Danny Danon recently launched the UN Task Force on Combating Antisemitism, citing the gap between what governments say publicly and what they do in practice. He warned that “the words ‘Never Again’ weren’t meant to be a slogan, they were meant to be a commitment.”
American singer Pink responded to backlash she received for resharing an Instagram post criticizing rapper Macklemore’s Palestinian comments during his performance at an Ed Sheeran concert:
“I was born a Jew. I didn’t pick it, and I’ve never hidden it. Of course I don’t speak for Israel, or for any government. I never have. What I said in October 2023 is still exactly what I believe: Hamas is a terrorist organization. Palestinians deserve a future that honors their humanity and their aspirations. Protecting innocent life comes first, everywhere, and nobody should ever celebrate the death of a child. Anybody’s child.
“Here’s what I was reacting to. I was in the room at the Grammys in 2014 when Macklemore rapped ‘Same Love’ and 33 couples, gay and straight, got married to it, and I cheered, no questions asked. Four months later Macklemore put on a hooked nose, a black beard and a bowl cut, performed in it, and called it a ‘random costume.’ Every Jew I know knew exactly what it was.
“Then last weekend he stood in front of a stadium full of music-loving families, with violent images from a war on the screens, dedicated a song to the movement of his choice, and then took the mic to tell all of the Jews in the stadium that it wasn’t about them. You don’t get to decide that for us.”
Click here to read her full comments in Variety.
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This content is developed by The Focus Project in partnership with MERCAZ USA. The Focus Project distributes weekly news and talking points on timely issues concerning Israel and the Jewish people, including antisemitism, anti-Zionism and the delegitimization of Israel. It represents a consensus view across a spectrum of major American Jewish organizations. MERCAZ USA recognizes and respects the diversity of views on these issues among its readers and the community at large.
