On May 3, 2021, a US State Department spokesperson told The Jerusalem Post that the United States will not participate in the Durban IV conference this September. The upcoming conference commemorates the 20-year anniversary of the 2001 Durban Declaration. The State Department’s announcement emphasizes that while “the Biden Administration has put racial justice at the top of its priorities, both in multilateral fora and at home,” it cannot stand by the anti-Semitism embedded in the Durban Declaration. The Jerusalem Post reported: “The State Department spokesperson said that the US ‘remains deeply committed to combating antisemitism at home and abroad. Furthermore, the United States stands with Israel and has always shared its concerns over the Durban process’s anti-Israel sentiment, use as a forum for antisemitism and freedom of expression issues.’” The United Nationals World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance, aka Durban I, met in 2001 with lofty goals of fighting racial discrimination and global intolerance. Instead, “Durban I degenerated into the worst antisemitic hate fest since the end of World War II,” as Simon Wiesenthal Center associate dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper has observed. At the UN conference and the parallel NGO Forum, held separately by NGOs and their representatives, Israel was singled out and called a “racist apartheid state” guilty “of racist crimes including war crimes, acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing.” Copies of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were sold on conference grounds and flyers were circulated depicting Hitler with the question, “What if I had won?” and the answer, “There would be NO Israel and NO Palestinian bloodshed.” The United States withdrew from the conference before its conclusion, with then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell issuing the following statement explaining the decision: Today I have instructed our representatives at the World Conference Against Racism to return home. I have taken this decision with regret, because of the importance of the international fight against racism and the contribution that the Conference could have made to it. But, following discussions today by our team in Durban and others who are working for a successful conference, I am convinced that will not be possible. I know that you do not combat racism by conferences that produce declarations containing hateful language, some of which is a throwback to the days of “Zionism equals racism;” or supports the idea that we have made too much of the Holocaust; or suggests that apartheid exists in Israel; or that singles out only one country in the world—Israel—for censure and abuse. President Biden’s decision follows the policy established by Secretary Powell’s statement. After its withdrawal from Durban I, the United States has consistently boycotted the past commemorations of the initial conference and refused to endorse the Durban Declaration, no matter the administration. When the United States rejoined the Human Rights Council earlier this year, it appeared that it might be reconsidering its boycott of the Durban Declaration, but this clarification by the State Department shows that Biden remains committed to rejecting the declaration’s anti-Semitism. Until the Durban Declaration addresses its anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic elements, it cannot truly fight against international racism. The Brandeis Center’s Founder and Chairman, Kenneth L. Marcus, has applauded the State Department’s announcement: “The Biden Administration’s refusal to take part in the anniversary events of the Durban Declaration, which established the tone of anti-Semitism in the 21st century, should serve as an example for other democracies to emulate. President Biden and Secretary Blinken have made the right decision.” B’nai B’rith International likewise issued a statement indicating that it “salutes the US administration for taking a principled decision, like its predecessors, to deny legitimacy to a UN framework that purports to fight prejudice but is fundamentally marred by it.”