I arrived in Geneva on Sunday lunchtime, I knew very little about what my purpose was at the conference or even what the conference would be about, apart from being told about the disgusting behaviour of many NGO’s at the 2001 Conference against Racism.

When we arrived we met up with our fellow delegates from across the world, many students from Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Poland, Italy, Spain, Australia, South Africa, Israel, Canada and only a few surprisingly from the USA. We had several sessions with key political figures explaining to us the structure of the conference, the outcome document and ultimately what we were in Geneva to do.

In 2001 the conference in Durban became known as the ‘hatefest’, outside the UN and within it NGO’s and activists were shouting anti-Semitic slogans, accusing the Jews of some almighty conspiracy and intimidating anyone Jewish at the conference. I would like to point out that I have always been one of these people who is wary of the equation that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, I have generally always rejected that idea and I will continue to reject it as a student in Leeds, however the people who were campaigning on behalf of the Palestinians in 2001 were not using language that could created a blur between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, these people were using out and out anti-Semitic language. So clearly, we were expecting much of the same in Geneva, we were pleasantly surprised, we were not greeted by placards accusing us of wild conspiracies, we arrived and the city seemed a little dull.

On Monday morning we started, the conference kicked off and we were listening and observing the conference with great interest, and I might add with great anxiety. Of course we were all waiting for the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s address to the UN and waiting to see how the remaining western European countries dealt with this tyrant. I wish I could write that I did not expect to hear those words come out of Ahmadinejad’s mouth, however the entire UN knew exactly what was coming, even after being told to tone down his words by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, he still managed to come out with some vile notions, he accused the Zionists of starting the war in Iraq, questioned the Holocaust, and numerous times accused the Zionists of taking advantage of the ‘so called Holocaust’.

This conference was a farce to begin with. As a Jewish student attending the conference, it was rife with anti-Semitism, I was personally accused by a member of another NGO of having an intrinsic born desire to control the world, was subsequently blamed for the slave trade and accused of wanting to murder the Palestinians, she later told me that every single non-Jew in the world hates the Jews and more specifically that 56% of the conference hated the Jews, so clearly the remaining 44% must have been Jewish....

On the Friday a Canadian NGO stood up and denied that Anti-Semitism even existed and accused Israel and the 'Zionist Lobby' of creating the myth of anti-Semitism to fuel Zionist expansion, they later declared to the main plenary that 9/11 did not happen and it is a conspiracy, I will let you try to guess who they blamed.