Middle East tensions threatened to sink a UN conference against racism on Saturday despite pleas by Nelson Mandela to seize the chance to end the contagion of discrimination.
Mr Mandela, the father of South Africa's multi-racial democracy, made an impassioned call for delegates to put aside differences and act to rid the world of a disease that was an ailment of the mind and the soul.
"It kills many more than any contagion. It dehumanises anyone it touches," the 83-year-old former South African President said in a recorded speech to the second day of the UN Conference Against Racism.
Despite Mr Mandela's words, attention focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat again branding Israel as racist. Reparations to Africans for centuries of slavery also remained a stumbling block.
Activists from non-governmental organisations (NGOS), meeting on the fringes of the conference, were voting late on Saturday on a declaration that would brand Israel as a racist, apartheid state.
If the text were adopted by the near 3,000 NGOs, whose meeting is running parallel to the UN event, it would further sour the atmosphere inside the main conference.
Mr Arafat, who yesterday accused Israel of ethnic cleansing by driving Palestinians from their homes in the occupied territories, repeated the charge on Saturday.
The ugliness of these Israeli racist policies and practices against the Palestinian people has become manifest and obvious during the Intifada, he said.
He was referring to the 11-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli military occupation in which at least 548 Palestinians and 157 Israelis have been killed.
Today the Palestinians accused Israel of assassinating a senior official in a car blast in Gaza. Israel denied responsibility.