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Here is the State Department's statement, which specifically cites the fact that the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA) from 2001 "singles out one particular conflict and prejudges key issues that can only be resolved in negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians."
Jake Tapper has more:
The United Nations conference is set to begin tomorrow in Geneva, Switzerland.
Protesting what their leaders see as anti-Semitic and anti-Israel overtones to the conference, Australia, Canada, Israel, Italy and Sweden are also not sending delegations.
[...]
Much of the debate at the 2001 conference focused on whether or not Zionism was inherently racism, prompting the US and Israeli delegations to withdraw from the conference. An early draft called Israel "a racist apartheid state" and referred to Israel's "systematic perpetration of racist crimes, including war crimes, acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing."
The final language in the DDPA 2001 document, was much tamer, though no other country or struggle except for the Israel-Palestinian conflict was singled out for criticism.
Sorry, but singling out one party in such a biased way and using such incendiary language is no way to bring people together in opposition to racism. Sadly, the Durban conference represents the United Nations at its worst, and the United States is absolutely right not to participate in it or lend it legitimacy to this garbage in any way.
