Winners and (mostly) losers in the Durban disaster

Any assessment of winners and losers in this week's international conference in Durban, South Africa -- ostensibly on the issue of racism, in reality a well-orchestrated political attack on the legitimacy of Israel -- would be a skewed one.

Losers abound, including the body that put the conference together, thereby laying to rest any possibility it can ever play a useful role in untangling the violent Middle East. Winners are few.

The conference was hijacked by Arab and Muslim countries, with a boost from hundreds of non-governmental organizations that combined to pass a resolution singling out Israel among all the nations of the world as a human rights abuser.

Even severe critics of Israel's policies will have a hard time swallowing that charge, especially because the attack was organized by the likes of Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Syria.

The failure of the government portion of the conference to ease anti-Israel language prompted a U.S. and Israeli walkout on Monday.

Here are a few winners and losers in the Durban disaster:

*Losers: the Palestinians.

Is their only goal to batter Israel in the international forum? Then their effort was a rousing success.

But if they harbor hopes for a real peace process involving compromise on both sides, they inflicted their cause grievous harm.

Yasser Arafat's claim of Israeli "ethnic cleansing" will incense the Israeli public for generations; among his own people, his accusations can only fuel the visceral hatred that has undercut the peace process from the beginning.

Arafat is an effective tactician when on the attack, but once again he has proven his utter inability to see beyond today's headlines.

*Winners: the Jewish activists who ran a frightening gauntlet in South Africa as they fought this well-organized attack on Israel

Representatives of organizations including the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Hadassah, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and B'nai B'rith attended the non-governmental organization component of the conference -- where anti-Zionism quickly veered off into blatant anti-Semitism.

Several expressed trepidation about what they were getting into; the reality, sadly, made their expectations seem mild. It included the distribution of virulently anti-Semitic materials at this anti-racism meeting and what one participant described as a "near riot" when a Jewish news conference was disrupted by Palestinian protesters.

These activists fought a spirited, if unsuccessful effort to prevent the NGO conference from passing a hopelessly skewed resolution branding Israel an "apartheid" state.

Loser: the United Nations

Addressing racism is a critical need in today's world, and the United Nations should play a major role. Instead, its biased, cowardly leadership let this vital meeting turn into a political circus.

The Durban disaster demonstrated beyond any question that the international body is incapable of playing a constructive role in the Middle East. The skewed conference was the "death knell for any U.N.-sponsored effort on the Mideast peace process," said Abraham Foxman, the ADL's national director.

It is also clearer than ever that the international body and its top human rights official, Mary Robinson -- who likened Israel's treatment of the Palestinians to the Holocaust even as she was trying to quell the controversy -- are part of the human rights problem, not part of the solution.

*Winner: the Bush administration

Officials here did everything in their power to turn this conference around. When it seemed the focus would remain on Israel, not on racism, the administration decided to send only a lower-level delegation, not Secretary of State Colin Powell.

And when their efforts to soften the meeting declaration proved futile, they walked out.

They are being pounded around the world for that decision, but they did the right thing by refusing to lend credibility to this sham.

*Loser : Jesse Jackson

The civil rights leader, who has worked so hard to repair his relations with Jews, blew it all at Durban.

Last week, he announced that the "Zionism as racism" problem had been solved -- just before Arafat delivered a speech accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing, and just before the NGOs passed their resolution labeling Israel a "racist apartheid" state.

Then, when the United States pulled its delegation, he accused Washington of "subverting" the conference, and using the Zionism issue to divert attention from a real discussion of racism and reparations for slavery.

In doing so, he may have restored his role as Arafat's American apologist.

*Loser: the fight against racism

This conference could have represented a start in a long overdue international effort to fight intolerance and boost human rights.

By turning it into political farce, the Palestinians and their enablers boosted only the forces of hatred and intolerance.

That outcome is particularly sad for the African-American community, whose leaders had great hopes for the Durban conference and great pride in the fact that the United States would be represented by the first black secretary of state.

Both the hope and the pride were snatched from them -- by the Arab and Muslim states, not by Israel and the Jews.

But ultimately, the losers will include all victims of discrimination -- a long list that includes Muslims, blacks and Jews.