Obama was wrong to boycott conference on racism--By Marlene Nadle

There is irony in America's first black president boycotting the U.N.'s international conference on racism this week. President Barack Obama's reason for not attending translates roughly into: you didn't do it our way, so we won't play.

Obama's boycott will begin to deplete whatever goodwill he has created for himself and America in the nations of color. People in those countries, like many Americans, hoped he would lead the fight for racial justice, not become an obstacle to it.

The decision will undercut his attempt in Turkey to reach out to the Muslim world. It has been widely reported that the boycott was urged by the right wing of the Jewish community and by the hawks in Israel. His caving in to that pressure will be seen in the Muslim world as more proof that America always takes Israel's side and can not be counted on as an honest broker in any peace process.

Obama's political calculation not to offend America's right-wing Jewish community was disguised behind quibbles over the wording of the conferences's draft document. After major changes in it, including removal of all references to Israel, his main remaining objection was to a section that reaffirmed the declaration of the 2001 UN conference on racism. That 2001 document contains statements some Jews say are hostile. Others reading it notice it condemns anti-Semitism, stresses Israel's right to security, and states the Holocaust must never be forgotten.

In accepting the Jewish right's interpretation of the document and insisting it not be reaffirmed, Obama adopted a policy of killing even the phantom messenger rather than dealing with the message. He reacted to the symptoms, not the cause. It was a narrow, ineffective response to Arab and world anger at Israel, some of it ugly, some of it anti-Semitic, but much of it rage over legitimate grievances. He gave up an opportunity to move the conversation in a more constructive direction. As a spokesperson for TransAfrica said of Obama and America's lost chance, "We are in a unique position to lead, but we can not lead if we do not show up."

Obama disappointed many who urged him to attend, including progressive Jews. Those who felt the most betrayed were members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the black community.

Now Obama is spinning the story by saying the countries drafting the document did not meet his "red lines." This from a candidate who once said he was willing to talk to any country without preconditions.

Instead of trying to rationalize his decision now, Obama should have listened to the Black Caucus when it tried to persuade him to reject the sections of the draft document he couldn't support and go to the conference anyway. It's standard U.N. procedure to place a reservation on particular paragraphs of a document and then endorse the document.

Instead, by not going, Obama damaged the conference by giving other Western countries cover not to attend. He harmed his reputation by acting more out of political calculation than principle. Most of all, he hurt America by chilling the positive feelings nations of color and those in the Muslim world were beginning to have towards it.

Marlene Nadle is a foreign affairs journalist and an associate of the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies at the New School University in New York. She wrote this article for the Mercury News.