(Editor’s note: former Omahan Maggie Fried, daughter of Sandi and Ed Fried, is spending a semester abroad through Boston University’s International Law Program. She is a junior at Colgate University.)
 GENEVA -- In 2001, a small delegation from the American Jewish Committee attended the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa.
   Almost immediately, the focus of the Conference veered away from racism and toward criticism of Israel. When members of the delegation identified themselves as part of a Jewish group, they were instantly confronted by the intense hatred of anti-Israel groups. By the end of the Conference, the AJC delegates no longer felt safe going anywhere, even to the bathroom, by themselves.
  This year, I joined the AJC’s delegation to the Durban Review Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, which was established to review the final document written at the first Durban Conference eight years before. In the days leading up to the Conference, several countries, including the U.S. dropped out of the Conference because they felt it would again focus on anti-Israel themes and not racism.
 As I read reports of these countries’ boycott, I became increasingly nervous that the Conference would be a repeat of the 2001 Durban Conference and I too would find myself mobbed by hundreds of angry people protesting Israel.

Silent protest by ‘Stand With Us’ organization at the UN Durban II conference in Geneva. Credit: ISRANET

 Sitting in the main gallery of the United Nations waiting for Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon to officially open the conference, I started to question my previous fears –security was tight, there were no angry mobs and the only way to identify me as a Jewish delegate was by looking at the fine print on my security badge. There was an anti-Israel reference in one of the opening speeches, but was there really anything to fear?
 After leaving the morning’s events, the delegation walked past the security entrance only to witness a young woman, surrounded by film crews and cameras, vigorously defending Israel against the accusations by an Arab media group. Near her was a group of men who looked like Hasidic rabbis, but were in fact members of Naturi Carta, who claim to be the “true” Jewish people and believe that Israel should be destroyed.
 Later over lunch one of the delegates who had been sitting in the press box told us that he had overheard other journalists saying that there was no point in attending an event on the genocide in Darfur because it was run by the Jews. I quickly came to realize that while polite decorum prevailed in the formal sessions, anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel lurked outside of the main gallery. However, by the afternoon, even the heavy metal doors of the gallery could not prevent anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments from seeping in.
 The much anticipated event of the afternoon and the cause of much controversy was the address by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I was not able to get a seat in the main gallery and instead watched the speech in an overflow room with members of other NGOs, some of whom were pro-Israel and some that clearly supported Ahmadinejad.
 By this time, videos and transcripts of Ahmadinejad’s speech are all over the internet and so there is no need to repeat his disgusting language. However, these videos do not capture the calamitous scene that broke out among members of NGOs in the overflow room nor the emotion of those watching what was taking place only two floors above. Within the first minute of the speech, people in the overflow room began yelling about the lack of a translation and the deprivation of their rights.
 At this point, members of many Jewish NGOs and others, including Harvard professor

Pro-Israel rally on April 22, 2009 across from the U.N. headquarters was among the ways Jewish groups showed strength in Geneva. Credit: Michael J. Jordan

Alan Dershowitz, walked out of the room. When the people dressed as clowns began running through the main gallery toward Ahmadinejad, absolute madness broke out in the room. People began screaming at one another, some yelling that those disrupting the speech should leave with others yelling back condemnations of Ahmadinejad.
 Then came the moment when the members of European delegations walked out of the main gallery, upholding their promise that they would walk out at the first anti-Semitic or anti-Israel comment. As we watched them file out the door, people in the overflow room started clapping, banging on tables and standing on chairs and yelling.
 In the midst of their cheers, I sat there stunned, not only that such a man would be allowed to stand in front of a legitimate international organization and spew such garbage, but at the response both in the overflow room and the main gallery. Ahmadinejad’s exit from the main gallery did not mark the end of the day’s outrageous events.
 Later, on the way to a press conference, members of Ahmadinejad’s entourage were filmed screaming “Zio-Nazi” at Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and only a little while later, a group of “Jews”  -- the Naturi Carta -- fawned over the Iranian president and presented him with a trophy.
 I returned home from the first day of the Conference exhausted and overwhelmed. A friend, who had also been covering the Conference for another NGO, stopped by to discuss the day’s events.
 “When Ahmadinejad was speaking, I started sweating and shaking,” he said. “I was absolutely terrified of him, not only by his statement that liberal democracy will soon no longer exist, but that a man like him actually holds power in the world.” His comments made me think back to a conversation earlier in the day in which a member of my delegation spoke about how his younger siblings and their Jewish friends have come to take anti-Israel propaganda as fact.
 I started to wonder -- shouldn’t I, too, be fearful? Shouldn’t I be fearful that there are so many people in the world who seek the destruction of my homeland and that some of these people claim to represent the Jewish opinion? Shouldn’t I be fearful that a world leader claims that the gas chambers that killed my ancestors are lies and worse, that other people actually believe him?
 Pondering these questions, I remembered that I too was overcome with emotion during Ahmadinejad’s speech, but what I realized is that the emotion I felt, and continued to feel throughout the day, was not fear but pride and hope.
 The American Jewish Committee delegates who attended the first Durban Conference were the lone pro-Israel voice in a sea of anti-Zionist protesters. Members of the international Jewish community vowed not to allow this Durban Conference to be a repeat of the past.

Ahmadinejad during his fiery speech at the Durban Conference on April 20. Credit: Michael J. Jordan

 Everywhere I went the first day, I was shocked at the strong presence of kippot and small Israeli flags pinned to suit lapels. I cannot say that I agree with the disruptive tactics of the Jewish groups who protested Ahmedinejad’s speech. However, I was proud that the Jewish community had rallied in such force at this conference to show the world that we would not stand by as our homeland is verbally attacked on the international stage.
   I was proud that the Jewish people, who are such a minority of the global population, made up such a large percentage of the people at the Conference. I was proud that in no side event could anti-Israel language be used without at least one member of a Jewish group offering a counter-opinion.
 After attending the Durban Review Conference, there is no question in my mind as to the existence and strength of a voice that calls for Israel’s destruction. However, the fear these voices incite is outweighed by hope.
 The Jewish people will not sit by quietly and allow these voices to grow louder, but rather, will continue to come together and in doing so, make sure our voice is heard as well. And we are not alone in our fight to protect Israel;
 As I watched the men and women who represent the EU nations file out of the main gallery, I felt tears coming to my eyes. I was overcome with the feeling of hope when I realized that we, the Jewish people and a minority in the world, were being supported by the Western world.
 Seventy years ago, when Hitler and not Ahmadinejad, was espousing hatred toward the Jews, the Western nations would not have stood up and walked out. Maybe I should be fearful, but sitting at a Yom Hashoah event in front of the United Nations building the evening after Ahmadinejad spoke, I could only be filled with hope.
 The voice of the Jewish people had been practically silenced by Hitler, but seven decades later, the voice of the Jewish people and our allies was loud enough to drown out the hatred of Ahmadinejad and others like him.