GENEVA, (Reuters) – A growing Western boycott  threatens to undermine a United Nations conference on racism  that Israel’s friends say could become a platform for scathing  criticism of the Jewish state.

The United States announced on Saturday it would stay away,  citing “objectionable” language in a text prepared for the  Geneva meeting which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will  address today, its opening day.

Australia, the Netherlands and Germany joined the boycott yesterday, and Italy is also expected to sit it out.

Canada and Israel have said for months they will shun the  meeting, which the United Nations organised to help heal the  wounds left by its last race summit in South Africa in 2001.

The United States and Israel walked out of that conference  after Arab states sought to define Zionism as racist.

Australia said it shared U.S. concerns about the declaration  for the follow-up conference, which omits explicit references to  Israel and the Middle East but “reaffirms” a text adopted at the  2001 Durban summit which singled out the Jewish state.

“Regrettably, we cannot be confident that the Review  Conference will not again be used as a platform to air offensive  views, including anti-Semitic views,” Australian Foreign  Minister Stephen Smith said in a statement.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said: “The  decision was not easy. But the German government thinks that,  despite intense efforts especially on the part of the EU, the  conference will be misused for other interests, just as the  previous conference was in 2001.”

Human rights activists said that without diplomats from  Western governments present the draft document may be reopened  for negotiation during the week-long conference and possibly not  agreed at all.

U.S. President Barack Obama, speaking at a news conference  after the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, said  that Washington wanted a “clean slate” before tackling race and  discrimination issues at the United Nations.

“If we have a clean start, a fresh start, we are happy to  go,” he said, explaining the U.S. position. “If you’re  incorporating a previous conference that we weren’t involved  with (and) that raised a whole set of objectionable provisions,  then we couldn’t participate.”

The draft text was negotiated by diplomats in months of  highly sensitive talks in Geneva. The United States largely  stood aside and while EU countries were involved, they had  reservations throughout.

Attempts to forge a common EU position on attending the  conference proved futile.