The UN conference on racism limped into its last scheduled day Friday marred by differences over the Middle East conflict.
Marathon negotiations have so far failed to minimize differences between the European and Arab groups which have persisted since the United States and Israel walked out of the conference on Monday over "offensive" language on the Middle East.
Since then South Africa, which is chairing the conference in Durban has produced two new draft texts to address the issue; the latest, presented early Thursday, as a "take-it-or-leave-it" option.
The proposed compromise, the second South African proposal rejected by the Arab states, sought to bridge the gap between the Arabs' call for the conference to condemn Israeli practices as racist and the European Union's refusal to allow the conference to take sides in the conflict.
Israel and the US walked out of the conference because of the emerging resolution, which singled out Israel as the only state mentioned specifically by the conference.
Palestinian ambassador Salman el-Herfi said the new text was "totally unacceptable," according to Haaretz newspaper.
The text recognizes the Holocaust as unique and condemns anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
While it does not specifically criticize Israel or Zionism, the text contains references to "the plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupation," and it "recognizes the right of refugees to return," said the paper.
The EU has accepted the proposal, said Koen Vervaeke, spokesman for Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel, who is leading the EU delegation. "We are not fully happy but ... we consider it as a minimum response to our concerns," he said.
Officially, Israel is rejecting the text because it refers to Israel, though by indication, not directly.
In a letter to his European colleagues, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres wrote that "any resolution that includes criticism, even mitigated, of Israel will not be any less damaging than the original formulation."
He reminded them that the EU had decided in July that they would oppose any declaration at Durban that dealt with specific ongoing conflicts.
If negotiations over the issue continue past the scheduled closing of the conference Friday night, the conference could be extended into Saturday and beyond to allow the talks to continue, said Sue Markham, spokeswoman for the conference, cited by Haaretz.
Without a new, acceptable proposal on the Middle East conflict, the Arab states would bring the original wording of the document, which criticized Israel's racist practices, back to the whole conference for debate, even if it takes one or two months, el-Herfi said.
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior, meanwhile, says that if the current resolution is accepted it would be "a considerable victory" compared to the original resolution proposed by the Arab and Muslim states.
Meanwhile, African countries' demands for reparations for slavery is the other key sticking point at the conference, and no agreement had been reached by late Thursday on that text despite the mediation of Brazil and Kenya.
African nations want an unambiguous apology as well as reparations in the form of developmental aid, AFP said.
But the Europeans are worried about the implications of an apology for possible lawsuits and are offering expressions of "regret", "sorrow", "deep remorse" or "abhorrence," sources close to the talks told AFP.
Under UN rules, the "clock could be stopped" just before midnight Friday meaning any overrunning discussions on Saturday would technically still be taking place on September 7, said Markham – Albawaba.com
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