French President Nicolas Sarkozy was right to threaten to pull France out of the United Nations’ next racism conference should it start to resemble the anti-Semitic hate fest that was the first such conference. His is the moral stance that civilized countries should adopt. The U.N.’s racism conference in Durban, South Africa, degenerated into exactly what it was supposed to combat with the most abusive countries hijacking the agenda.

Speaking at the annual dinner of France’s council of Jewish organizations, the CIRF, President Sarkozy noted that France is scheduled to be the head of the EU presidency in the run-up to the 2009 racism conference and that ”our European partners share France’s concerns.”

”The Durban conference in 2001 led to intolerable excesses from certain states and numerous [nongovernmental organizations] that turned the conference into a forum against Israel, and no one has forgotten,” he added. Never again should those excesses be repeated.