UN Authority Figures

Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories: Richard Falk

Reuters
"In 2004, Falk wrote the forward to "The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11," a book written by David Ray Griffin, a Sept. 11 conspiracy theorist. Griffin's book argues that the Twin Towers may have been brought down by a "controlled demolition" - not by two airliners hijacked by Al Qaeda operatives - and that the Pentagon may not have been hit by a plane at all." (Critics demand Resignation of U.N. Official Who Wants Probe of 9/11 "Inside Job" Theories, by Joseph Abrams, June 19, 2008, Fox News)

Rapporteur's mandate:
"(a) To investigate Israel's violations of the principles and bases of international law, international humanitarian law and the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967; ...(c) To report...until the end of the Israeli occupation of those territories..." (Commission on Human Rights Resolution 1993/2)

"[T]he following general criteria will be of paramount importance while nominating, selecting and appointing mandate holders: (a) expertise; (b) experience in the field of the mandate; (c) independency; (d) impartiality; (e) personal integrity; (f) objectivity". (Human Rights Council Decision 6/102 Follow-up to Human Rights Council resolution 5/1, September 27, 2007)

Term of office: May 1, 2008-May 8, 2014

Richard Falk already holds these views on Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian (Arab-Israeli) conflict :
  • Israeli actions are analogous to that of the Nazis
  • Hamas is not a terrorist organization
  • Israeli deaths from Palestinian "extremism" are minimal
  • Israel is engaged in a holocaust-in-the-making
"Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with...criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not. The recent developments in Gaza are especially disturbing because they express so vividly a deliberate intention on the part of Israel and its allies to subject an entire human community to life-endangering conditions of utmost cruelty. The suggestion that this pattern of conduct is a holocaust-in-the-making represents a rather desperate appeal to the governments of the world and to international public opinion to act urgently to prevent these current genocidal tendencies... After winning the Palestinian elections, Hamas was castigated as a terrorist organization... In fact, the behavior and outlook of Hamas is quite different...The main weapon available to Hamas, and other Palestinian extremist elements, were Qassam missiles that resulted in producing no more than 12 Israeli deaths in six years... [T]he ratio of death and injury for the two sides in so unequal as to call into question the security logic of continuously inflicting excessive force and collective punishment on the entire beleaguered Gazan population, which is accurately regarded as the world's largest 'prison.'"(Slouching toward a Palestinian Holocaust, by Richard Falk, June 29, 2007, The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research)

"The Goldstone Report is itself a gesture in the direction of holding Israel accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity as perpetrated in Gaza...
I have been impressed by the Hamas effort to negotiate a ceasefire with Israel from the time of its election in January 2006, and its consistent effort to reestablish a ceasefire... I believe that Hamas should be treated as a political actor... I lament the continuation of the siege of Gaza, consider it a crime against humanity... There are many indications...that make the situation for Palestinians resemble that of the black Africans suffering under apartheid..."(Hamas Should Be Treated As A Political Actor: Richard Falk, by Dr Hanan Chehata, April 14, 2010, Middle East Monitor)

"...[I]magine the situation being reversed as it was during the Nazi occupation of France or the Netherlands during World War II. Resistance fighters were uniformly perceived in the liberal West as unconditional heroes, and no critical attention was given as to whether the tactics used unduly imperiled innocent civilian lives. Those who lost their lives in such a resistance were honoured as martyrs. Meshaal and other Hamas leaders have made similar arguments on several occasions..." (Understanding Hamas after Khaled Meshaal's Gaza speech, by Richard Falk, January 22, 2013, Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine)

"...as long as Tel Aviv has the compliant ear of the American political establishment those who wish for peace and justice in the world should not rest easy...[T]he somewhat hysterical Boston dragnet for the remaining at large and alive suspect... Should we not all be meditating on W.H. Auden's haunting line: "Those to whom evil is done/do evil in return"? The American global domination project is bound to generate all kinds of resistance in the post-colonial world. In some respects the United States has been fortunate not to experience worse blowbacks, and these may yet happen, especially if there is no disposition to rethink US relations to others in the world, starting with the Middle East... [S]elf-scrutiny and mid-course reflections on America's global role is long overdue.. Such adjustments will eventually come about either as a result of a voluntary process of self-reflection or through the force of unpleasant events....We should be asking ourselves at this moment, "how many canaries will have to die before we awaken from our geopolitical fantasy of global domination?" (A Commentary on the Marathon Murders, by Richard Falk, April 19, 2013, richardfalk.wordpress.com)

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