Last Call

Obama has decided that the UN conference on racism "unfairly singles out Israel" and will boycott it.

The United States is boycotting a U.N. conference on racism next week over a document that "singles out" Israel in its criticism and conflicts with the nation's "commitment to unfettered free speech," the U.S. State Department said Saturday.

The Obama administration made the decision not to attend the Durban Review Conference in Geneva "with regret," a State Department statement said.

Two months ago, the administration had warned that it would boycott the conference if changes were not made to the document to be adopted by the conference. In recent weeks, discussions over the document have fueled several revisions, but the changes to the language didn't meet U.S. expectations, the statement said.

The current draft is "significantly improved," but "it now seems certain these remaining concerns will not be addressed in the document to be adopted by the conference next week."

State Department officials say the document contains language that reaffirms the Durban Declaration and Programme of Actions from the 2001 conference in Durban, South Africa, which the United States has said it won't support. The 2001 document "prejudges key issues that can only be resolved in negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians," the statement said.

An African-American president facing racism on an unprecedented scale is boycotting a UN racism conference because Israel's feelings may be hurt. But hey, it's not like Israel treats Palestinians as subhuman or anything. They learned that from us, after all. Dehumanize the enemy, and then you don't feel bad at all when you call for their death.

But then again, Israel runs our foreign policy anyway. We have to run everything past the Israeli Prime Minister anyhow, and if they don't approve, well then decisions are made for Mr. Obama.

It's sad, but it's the truth. They even deign to tell an African-American President what America's international stance on racism should be.

That's mind-blowing.