How the 1999 Durban conference reshaped the global framing of antisemitism

In a reflection on the 1999 World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, Jack Jedwab describes how the event became a turning point for the treatment of antisemitism in international discourse. Arriving to contribute a report for the Government of Canada’s anti-racism secretariat, he expected a unified fight against all forms of racism. Instead, the NGO Forum that ran alongside the official conference was hijacked by activists who framed hatred of Jews as legitimate political opposition to Israel.

Participants distributed the notorious "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," displayed posters linking Israel to Nazi Germany, and dismissed antisemitic attacks as solidarity with anti-colonial movements. Although the final UN declaration retained language condemning antisemitism, the civil-society side set a precedent for questioning whether antisemitism qualifies as racism. Irwin Cotler, later Canada’s justice minister, cautioned that such "partitioning of prejudice" undermines the moral authority of human-rights efforts. Jedwab warns that the legacy of Durban endangers the universality of anti-racism by allowing selective condemnation of hatred.