Luke Akehurst, Director of We Believe in Israel, said:

“We are delighted that the British Government is joining the USA, Canada and Australia in refusing to attend this September’s UN commemoration of the anniversary of the notorious Durban conference.

We want to thank the thousands of activists who emailed their MPs in the campaign we ran with Israel Britain Alliance to call for this decision.

Sadly, while the headline objective of the “Durban” series of conferences has been noble, they have been marred by becoming what the Jewish community internationally have described as a “hostile showcase for open antisemitism.”

The NGO Forum of the original Durban conference described Israel as a "racist, apartheid state" that was guilty of "racist crimes including war crimes, acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing".

The conference secretary-general, Mary Robinson, said of the whole conference that "there was horrible antisemitism present, particularly in some of the NGO discussions. A number of people said they've never been so hurt or so harassed or been so blatantly faced with antisemitism."

Given the antisemitism and extreme anti-Israel discourse associated with the original conference it is commemorating, which is almost certain to reoccur at the commemoration, we are pleased that the UK is not giving credibility to this event.”

We Believe in Israel delivered a 5,000 signature petition to International Development Secretary Alok Sharma MP, calling on the Government to “use its leverage as one of the major donors to the Palestinian Authority (PA) to insist that it ends the practice of paying salaries to convicted terrorists.”