With the Durban conference set to close Friday, it was still unclear how the final declaration would target Israel. Conflicting rumors wafted through the hallways Thursday, with talk of "compromise" mixed with renewed "hard-line" stances.

Granted, the language that appeared in the NGO declaration will almost certainly not find its way into the final governmental declaration.

But some Jewish activists believe it will ripple outward nonetheless. They see the conference as the first step of a new worldwide Palestinian strategy aimed at "delegitimizing" Israel: the "South Africa Strategy," designed to dismantle the Jewish state by isolation enforced by embargoes and sanctions. Already, someone seems to have heard: A pro-Palestinian student group announced this week that in October it will launch a campaign across university campuses nationwide to demand U.S. divesture from Israel, much the way student groups forced divestiture from South Africa in the 1970s and '80s.

Israel has many defenders, and the campaign is unlikely to truly ignite, but it could force the nation and its supporters to fight many more political brush fires around the globe, and erode its overall international support.

"One may think this is a strategy borne out of frustration, from a people who have nothing left to lose," said Felice Gaer, a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and a human rights expert at the American Jewish Committee. "In fact, it's a well-organized effort to use the human rights talk to delegitimize not only the actions of Israel, but its very right to exist. In all the history of the United Nations there's only been one issue that has caused the member states to declare another member illegitimate, and that has been states based on a racist ideology, apartheid." South Africa and Rhodesia, now known as Zimbabwe, to be precise.

But Dakwar rejected the notion of a far-reaching strategy to destroy Israel. "As far as I know, there is no intention," he said. "Those who are saying that are blaming the victim, simply because they are asking for their rights."

Jewish observers also say they expect the accusation of apartheid to be hammered home again at the U.N. General Assembly later this month when it reconvenes in New York. At the world body, they say, language used over and over again, particularly that which condemns Israel, tends to become law. As usual, Israel will have to rely on America's diplomatic intervention, and if things get too serious, the U.S. veto at the U.N. Security Council.

And then there's concern about who will get blamed for the anticipated failure of the Durban conference to make progress on the world's most pressing racial issues. Some Jewish activists here, while pleasantly surprised with the support shown for Israel by the Bush administration, nevertheless wondered whether Bush was ducking behind Israel to avoid the issue of slavery reparations. Washington may have considered it a win-win: take the high ground by not tolerating Israel-bashing, and avoid talk of reparations.

"I'm very, very skeptical about what's gone on here," said one activist from Kansas City. "This was very convenient for [Bush]."

Moreover, with the U.S. walkout and stunted progress on reparations, some also worried about potential fallout for black-Jewish relations in Congress, and in society at large. African-American leaders and activists here have been frustrated, first by the absence of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, then the attention diverted to the Middle East.

Black-Jewish relations may indeed be in for a rough spell, said a Kenyan-born American journalist in Durban.

"There's probably going to be some beef," said the journalist, "where some black folks are going to say that the smaller Jewish community is again showing more influence in Washington than a community that's almost 15 percent of the population."

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