'Anti-Durban' event planned for New York

"It's an affront to anyone who cares about human rights to commemorate the antisemitic hate-fest that was Durban I," said Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro College Institute and a key organiser of the counter-conference.

"Yet shortly after New Yorkers and Americans go through the trauma of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, the UN is going to celebrate the hatred and antisemitism of the first Durban conference," she said.

At that conference, which ended days before the attacks of September 11, 2001, the US and Israel walked out over a draft document which equated Zionism with racism.

"What's so appalling is the failure to recognise the relationship between hate and violence," said Ms Bayefsky. "Durban encouraged hate, antisemitism and discrimination against Israel, and terrorism follows."

Other speakers at the counter-conference will include former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. Ms Bayefsky said the response has been "overwhelming". It will be webcast at durbanwatch.com.

The US, Israel, Australia and Canada, among other nations, are boycotting Durban III. Ms Bayefsky said it was "appalling that Britain, who should well understand the danger of allowing antisemitism in any form to go unchecked and who is a founding member of the UN", is participating. She also denounced Germany's failure to boycott the meeting.