http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123508939643928103.html

Last December, we wrote that an “early test” for the Obama Administration would be whether it participated in a forthcoming U.N. conference on racism, better known as Durban II. Uh, oh.

The first “Durban” — named for the South African city where the U.N. held its 2001 World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance — was chiefly notable as a virulent display of anti-Semitism. Yet last weekend, the Administration announced it would participate in “conference preparations,” while reserving judgment on whether to attend the conference itself. If this isn’t failing the big test, it’s flunking the pop quiz.

So here’s a make-up review. Back in 2001, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell refused to appear at Durban for fear that it would turn into a carnival of hatred and grievance. That’s exactly what happened, prompting Mr. Powell to withdraw the U.S. delegation. As he put it at the time, “I know that you do not combat racism by suggesting that apartheid exists in Israel.”

Undeterred, the U.N. has been merrily planning what it formally calls the “Durban Review Conference,” which is scheduled for April and whose purpose is to “reaffirm the Durban Declaration.” The preparatory committee is chaired by Libya. Vice chairs include Iran and Cuba, which does double duty as the committee “rapporteur.” The conference is organized under the auspices of the U.N. Human Rights Council, which the Bush Administration refused to join.

As for what this Review Conference is supposed to achieve, some clues are provided in the latest draft of the so-called Outcome Document. Israel’s “racial policies” are a major theme, as is “the plight of Palestinian refugees and other inhabitants of the Arab occupied territories,” meaning Israel itself. Under debate, however, is whether to include a line that the Holocaust “resulted in the murder of one third of the Jewish people.” Presumably Iran objects.

The draft also calls “on states to develop, and where appropriate to incorporate, permissible limitations on the exercise of the right to freedom of expression into national legislation.” Yes, you read that right. The transparent purpose is to criminalize all criticism of Islam, a.k.a. “Islamophobia.” There is also a not-so-sly effort to extract reparations for the long-banned trans-Atlantic slave trade: States that “have not yet condemned, apologized and paid reparations” for the trade are urged “to do so at the earliest.”

The Obama Administration knows all of this. In its press release, the State Department stressed that its intent in sending a delegation to Geneva is “to try to change the direction in which the Review Conference is heading.” State also adds that its involvement “does not indicate — and should not be misconstrued to indicate — that the United States will participate” in the formal conference.

We’d be more confident if State hadn’t released the news at 7:03 p.m. last Saturday, when most of the world was better occupied. This is how Washington officialdom announces decisions of which it is not especially proud.