Not the first time that the former U.N. special rapporteur has given bias a bad name - by Ruthie Blum

...Falk should have been discredited academically and politically ‎decades ago. Alas, people of his ilk, who purport to care about the issue of human rights while siding ‎with and apologizing for its greatest abusers, are not only immune to consequences, but are rewarded ‎with illustrious titles and lucrative positions.‎

Ruthie Blum..
Israel Hayom..
17 March '17..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=18639

The outrageous report released this week by the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western ‎Asia -- which concludes "beyond a reasonable doubt that Israel is guilty of policies and practices that ‎constitute the crime of apartheid" -- should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with its co-author, ‎Richard Falk.‎

This is not the first time that the former U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian ‎Territories has given bias a bad name. Indeed, throughout his career, the American legal "scholar" has ‎shown a deep loathing for Western democracies, including his own, while not even attempting to ‎disguise his deep attraction to and affinity for evil Islamists. ‎
Though infamous since 2001 for blaming the U.S. for the 9/11 attacks, linking the Boston Marathon ‎bombings to America's Mideast policies and warning that Israel was committing genocide, Falk was ‎busy apologizing for bloodthirsty radicals and their regimes long before that.‎

Hosting a Three Day Hate Festival at Southampton U.

...Southampton’s Vice Chancellor Don Nutbeam has defended the university’s right to hold the conference. As mentioned, it is true that they do have every right. But Nutbeam and his institution should just know that if they go ahead with hosting such conferences, they will be directly complicit in furthering the rising and harrowing tide of anti-Semitism in Europe, a phenomenon that has already got a number of innocent people murdered.

Tom Wilson..
Commentary..
12 March '15..

The announcement that Southampton University in England is to host a conference delegitimizing Israel’s basic right to exist is just one more reminder of how warped the conversation about Israel has become in the academic world. The conference has drawn criticism from a handful of British politicians, but not nearly as many as would have spoken up if the fundamental rights of just about any other people were being called into question in this way. Naturally, the university has gone on the defensive and is invoking arguments about academic freedom. Of course, the university has every right to hold such a conference if it wishes, but that still doesn’t make the decision to do so a decent one. And a glance over some of the names attending this conference reveals that this event has nothing to do with free or credible academic inquiry.

It should be said at the outset that even if the organizers could demonstrate that they are structuring the sessions and speakers for this conference in a balanced manner, to put Israel’s right to exist up for question is itself far beyond the pale. It’s not as if debating the existence of the world’s other nation-states is a routine practice. Unless Southampton University can provide a serious list of other countries that have been subjected this kind of treatment—a three-day-long extravaganza of condemnation and delegitimization—then we are left with no choice but to conclude that this institution just doesn’t mind playing host to bigotry.

Of course, the whole undertaking is not only profoundly offensive; it is also utterly absurd. The conference is being hosted by the college’s law faculty, and claims that it will be exploring the question of Israel’s right to exist with regard to international law. But as Israel is one of the few states in the world that was actually established by specific instructions by both the League of Nations and the United Nations, there are simply no plausible grounds for inquiry here.

Similarly, the university’s website defends the conference as being part of the effort to establish an “enduring peace.” But what kind of genuine peace process involves telling one side that it doesn’t have any rights, not even to so much as exist?

Surprise! New Special Rapporteur, Same as the Old Special Rapporteur

...What was it that got Christina Cerna disqualified? Well, going by the letters that the Arab League sent to the UNHRC’s president it would seem that what counted against Cerna was that she had no previous record of condemning Israel. Without a resume peppered with pro-Palestinian statements she just couldn’t be considered up to the job. Chinkin, on the other hand, has an impressive record of anti-Israel statements to recommend her.

Christine Chinkin

Tom Wilson..
Commentary Magazine..
27 March '14..

Having 9/11 truther Richard Falk retire from his position as “United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories” might have been cause for celebration if it hadn’t been almost inevitable that Falk would simply be replaced by someone no less off the wall. That is what has now happened. Under pressure from the Arab League, the United Nations Human Rights Council’s president Remigiusz Hencze has rejected the candidacy of Georgetown Law lecturer Christina Cerna despite the fact that Cerna had the unanimous endorsement of the UNHRC’s five-member vetting committee. Although initial reports from diplomats suggested that the decision had been made to have Indonesia’s former UN envoy Makarim Wibisono as a replacement for Falk, it now emerges that the position will likely go to the equally dubious Christine Chinkin, one of the authors of the infamous Goldstone report.

What was it that got Christina Cerna disqualified? Well, going by the letters that the Arab League sent to the UNHRC’s president it would seem that what counted against Cerna was that she had no previous record of condemning Israel. Without a resume peppered with pro-Palestinian statements she just couldn’t be considered up to the job. Chinkin, on the other hand, has an impressive record of anti-Israel statements to recommend her.

Falk was always going to be a tough act to follow. This is the man who has accused the Jewish state of “slouching toward nothing less than a Palestinian Holocaust.” Yet, the monitoring group UN Watch has complied a rogues gallery of some of the other candidates. Many had their money on Falk’s friend and close associate Phyllis Bennis who assisted Falk in compiling a number of his reports, some of which were so pro-Hamas that the Palestinian Authority actually blocked Falk from presenting one of them.

UNHRC, Falk and a six-year waste of time and resources

...Falk is a twisted circus clown who should never be hosted by respectable institutions and should be put in his place for the disservice he did Israelis and Palestinians (rather than applauded for “helping” them); hopefully the international community will learn from this six-year waste of time and resources.

Seth J. Frantzman..
Terra Incognita/JPost..
20 February '14..

Richard Falk’s final report to the UN Human Rights Council as Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories was leaked this week just as he was giving a speech at Princeton University.

The gangly Falk, gave his traditional pro-Palestinian rant to the assembled.

He talked about South Africa and the importance of always being affiliated to “a cause and political movement.” In short, he proved once again why his mandate was never accepted, and made an asinine circus out of his mission; probably harming the Palestinians far more than critiquing Israel’s actions.

When he was appointed in 2008 Falk was the latest incarnation of the UN Human Rights Council’s “special” investigator only of Israeli actions in the West Bank and Gaza. The very nature of the mission, most felt, was biased. He was the fifth person to hold this position; his predecessor John Dugard had compared Israel’s actions to apartheid.

From the very beginning Falk, a professor emeritus of international law at Princeton, made a mockery of his mission. It was almost as if he set out to be so offensive as to make any supporter of the Palestinians seem like a quack and thus delegitimize the Palestinians.

In 2011 he was accused of being a 9/11 “truther” when it emerged he had claimed there was an “apparent cover up” and that there were “well evidenced doubts about the official version.” In 2012, according to UN Watch, he posted a cartoon on his blog showing “lady justice” holding the leash of a dog labeled USA wearing a Jewish yarmulke with a star of David.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, condemned the cartoon as anti-Semitic. When attacked for his outlandish blog posts, he claimed that it was part of “freedom of expression” and that “as an academic” he was merely raising questions and that it was unfair to “deliberately connect it to my UN mandate.”

Falk plowed on. In early 2013, after the Boston bombings, he claimed in the Foreign Policy Journal that “the American global domination project is bound to generate all kinds of resistance... 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.” Thus he argued that the Boston bombings were a kind of “resistance.” US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice responded that “someone who spews such vitriole has no place at the UN.”

Understanding the relationship between the industry of lies and the discourse of human rights

...But groups that spread lies, sometimes also called rights organizations, will continue to spread lies. And as long as someone like Richard Falk is a senior adviser to the Human Rights Council, and as long as human rights organizations cooperate with that body and its anti-Semitic adviser, they are complicit in the crime.

Ben-Dror Yemini..
I24 News..
09 January '14..

Professor Richard Falk is a top UN official. Recently he declared that Israel wreaks carnage upon the Palestinians, harboring what he termed "genocidal intent." If we want to understand the relationship between the industry of lies and the discourse of human rights, we could do worse than examine the case of this bad man, perhaps a Jew, who is an embodiment of this link.

Let us gauge the genocide claim. In 2013, 36 Palestinians were killed, according to the human rights organization B'Tselem. At least 30 of those were either involved in clashes with IDF soldiers or were members of terrorist organizations. Only a few innocents were killed. The death of each one of them is to be deeply regretted. Yet one should add that there isn't another conflict in the world where the fatality rate among civilians is as low as in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In other conflicts it is estimated that between 60 and 90 percent of fatalities are innocents. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they are a minority.

In fact, the annual fatality count in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is lower than a daily terror casualty toll in Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and other countries, where 1,153 people died as a result of terror attacks. This does not include the daily toll from the massacre perpetrated by the Syrian regime.

Most of the victims are Muslims killed by radical Islamists. In Pakistan in the course of last year alone, 5,366 people were killed in acts of terrorism. Almost 3,000 of them were civilians. In Iraq in 2013 alone, 8,868 were killed in terror acts, including 7,818 civilians. The war on terrorism waged by coalition forces claimed between 227 and 300 thousand lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, most of them innocents.

Even if the number of casualties of Israeli operations was 10 or 20 times higher, this would still not constitute genocide. A broad historical examination supports this view. Since 1967, less than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed. Most of them were terrorists. You can call it many things, but genocide it ain't.

Richard Falk, The UN cop for Israel

No, it’s not a portrait one expects for a guardian of human rights. Anyhow, HRW looked long and hard at Falk’s doings before showing him the door. Yet poison for one body can nourish another. Members of the UN Human Rights Council, including the member for the US, receive and debate Falk’s indictments of Israel, and see in their appointed cop nothing to render him unfit for the job. So he gets to keep the grandiloquent title: ‘Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.’

Steve Apfel..
Enemies of Zion/JPost..
22 December '13..

Richard Falk is a one-off cop. What other polices a whole people, is duty-bound to bring them to book, and obliged to blow the whistle on that people even before he sets off on his beat.

If that sounds like a freak cop, there’s more. How many servants can there be of diplomat lounge-abouts who expect their hiring to slap criminal charges on a predetermined felon?

That’s Richard Falk, the UN cop for Israel. An old Princeton law professor, with a caricature face that Herr Goebbels plastered around the Reich to drum up the oldest hatred in the world, Falk an American Jew, is a troublemaker without par. “Israel has genocidal intentions against the Palestinians,” he lately declared on Russian television. It could be the final straw. Canada has called on the UN Human Rights Council to remove Falk from the honorary position it gave him.

But then again there have been ‘final straws’ aplenty. Only this year the global NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) removed Falk from its Board after a string of freaky un-policeman acts.

Falk is definitely not your policeman’s policeman. There was the cartoon he posted of a Jew in the guise of a slavering dog; his likening of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to Nazi methods; his cozy partisanship for the Hamas terrorist group; his boycott-Israel advocacy; the oddball book he recommended, titled The wandering Who? and, really way-out, his conspiratorial beliefs. How many Western law professors can there be who espouse the view that the American government was behind 9/11?

No, it’s not a portrait one expects for a guardian of human rights. Anyhow, HRW looked long and hard at Falk’s doings before showing him the door.

Yet poison for one body can nourish another. Members of the UN Human Rights Council, including the member for the US, receive and debate Falk’s indictments of Israel, and see in their appointed cop nothing to render him unfit for the job. So he gets to keep the grandiloquent title: ‘Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.’

A mouthful of a title, but broken up into chunky bites it yields the full story – the evolutionary beliefs and commitments that lawman Falk must bring to the job.

The Need to Fire Falk Long Overdue

...Falk is grotesque and sooner or later he will go, but the United States should work to make it sooner, and work to be sure that he is not replaced.

Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..
18 December '13..

The Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories of the United Nations Human Rights Council is an extremist named Richard Falk. Falk is an embarrassment to the Council and the UN whose only activity is to use violent and extreme language in denouncing Israel–most recently for “a criminal intention that is genocidal.”

Canada has denounced Falk for these remarks and Foreign Minister Baird said this:

“Canada completely rejects and condemns the appalling remarks made by Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for the “Canada completely rejects and condemns the appalling remarks made by Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, in which he accused Israel of ‘genocidal’ intentions.

“Canada has previously called for Falk to be fired for his numerous outrageous and anti-Semitic statements, and these comments underscore once more the complete and total absurdity of his service as a UN Special Rapporteur.

“I call on the United Nations Human Rights Council—once again—to remove Falk from his position immediately.

“Not only do these comments undermine the fundamental values of the United Nations, they also belittle the terrible genocides that have tragically taken place throughout history and around the world.”

“Canada has previously called for Falk to be fired for his numerous outrageous and anti-Semitic statements, and these comments underscore once more the complete and total absurdity of his service as a UN Special Rapporteur.

“I call on the United Nations Human Rights Council—once again—to remove Falk from his position immediately.

“Not only do these comments undermine the fundamental values of the United Nations, they also belittle the terrible genocides that have tragically taken place throughout history and around the world.”

These comments are another reminder of the very strong and principled support for Israel coming from Prime Minister Harper and Foreign Minister Baird.

The Arab World’s Western Aid Addiction Meets the Left’s Racism

You look in the Israel direction and see richly cultivated farmland running across the Hula Valley for miles and miles almost to the horizon. You look into Lebanon and you see sporadic small olive groves, abandoned homes interspersed with inhabited ones and uncultivated hard-scrabble land running on forever. The difference is almost surreal since the land itself is the same on both sides of the border. Anyone could farm it. You just have to have the will to do it.

Roger L. Simon..
pjmedia.com..
13 June '13..

Of all the many extraordinary sites and sounds from the Israel trip from which I have just returned, the view from the high point of Kibbutz Misgav Am, in the extreme north, down into Lebanon is the one I am unable to get out of my mind.

You look in the Israel direction and see richly cultivated farmland running across the Hula Valley for miles and miles almost to the horizon. You look into Lebanon and you see sporadic small olive groves, abandoned homes interspersed with inhabited ones and uncultivated hard-scrabble land running on forever.

The difference is almost surreal since the land itself is the same on both sides of the border. Anyone could farm it. You just have to have the will to do it. (Much of that land, I was told, was riddled with underground tunnels through which to attack Israel.)

You notice a similar disparity between Israel and the Palestinian Authority areas on the West Bank.

Of course the soi-disant “progressive” explanation for the dramatic difference is the Israeli occupation. Never mind the Israelis are not occupying Lebanon – they must be doing it in some spiritual manner.

But only the likes of UN rapporteur and UCSB professor Richard Falk could actually believe that nonsense.

When I say “the likes of” I am acknowledging there are many similar (though few as bad as Falk), but I will get back to them in a second.

(Video) UN Watch's Hillel Neuer Confronts Richard Falk

LOTL..
12 June '13..

Earlier this week UN Watch issued the press release below, concerning UN Human Rights Council official Richard Falk's attacks on their NGO. As is known, the Executive Directive of UN Watch, Hillel Neuer, is both eloquent and quite capable in his defense of Israel, as well as human rights issues throughout the world. In his addressing Falk at the UNHRC on June 10th, no punches are pulled, and what needs to be said, is said.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UN Watch Press Release

Top Official Richard Falk Urges UN to Expel Watchdog

UN Watch: “We do not take this lightly: the UN has in the past
suspended NGOs for criticizing the wrong regimes”

GENEVA, June 6, 2013 – In a scathing and unprecedented attack on an accredited NGO, top UN Human Rights Council official Richard Falk is publicly calling on the 47-nation body to investigate and potentially shut down a watchdog organization after it mobilized world leaders—including his own boss, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon—to condemn his comments blaming the Boston Marathon bombings on “the American global domination project” and “Tel Aviv.”

Guess who freaked out on UN Watch in official UN report?

Elder of Ziyon..
04 June '13..

Richard Falk, the terror-supporting and constantly lying UN special rapporteur who used to support Ayatollah Khomeini, who believes in bizarre 9/11 conspiracy theories and who has justified the Boston bombings as "retribution" has written the latest of his regular anti-Israel reports for the UN.

Hilariously, he goes way off topic in a crazed rant in the introduction to the document to attack UN Watch, which has meticulously documented his unsuitability for his position.

The Special Rapporteur wishes to raise another concern regarding the independence, credibility, and effectiveness of this mandate. Since the Special Rapporteur assumed this position, “UN Watch” – a “pro-Israel” lobbying organization accredited as an NGO to ECOSOC, has issued a series of defamatory attacks demeaning his character, repeatedly distorting his views on potentially inflammatory issues. This smear campaign has been carried out in numerous settings, including at the Human Rights Council, as well as university venues where the Special Rapporteur gives lectures in his personal capacity on subjects unrelated to the mandate. The lobby groups' smears have been sent to diplomats and United Nations officials, including the Secretary-General, who has apparently accepted the allegations at face value, issuing public criticism of the Special Rapporteur.

(Continue)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook.

.

Another opening week of the UN Human Rights Council, promoting antisemitism around the globe

Anne Bayefsky..
HumanRightsVoices.org
28 May '13..

It is opening week of another session of the UN’s top human rights body, the UN Human Rights Council, and antisemitism will once again be promoted around the globe via an organization built on the ashes of the Jewish people and sworn to hatred’s eradication.

In March of last year, Israel decided not to cooperate with a UN “human rights” establishment that promises equality and delivers discrimination. Under heavy pressure from the Obama administration and European governments not to spotlight the dark antisemitic underbelly of UN “human rights” operations, however, Israel is considering reversing this decision.

Without fundamental reform, such an unfortunate about-turn by Israel would be a major boost to Israel’s delegitimizers.

The current Council session in Geneva is a case in point. From the start on Monday, May 27, the UN human rights chief Navi Pillay, issued an opening statement highlighting her major human rights concerns the world-over. Her preposterous series of countries having “crises” worthy of specific criticism were Syria, Myanmar, Iraq, the Central African Republic, Israel and the United States.

On the other hand, in Pillay’s view, Egypt, Libya and Yemen were “progressing in different ways and at different speeds.”

Omitted from her list altogether was the denial of elementary freedoms to a billion people in China, the downward spiral of rights and freedoms in Russia, the forthcoming sham elections of lead terror-sponsor Iran, or the degradation of an entire female population in Saudi Arabia.

But Israel, according to Pillay, was guilty of “the widespread detention of Palestinians – nearly 5,000.” It was irrelevant that the vast majority of these so-called detainees were prisoners, already tried and found guilty often of horrible crimes, in a country governed by the rule of law.

And that was merely the opening act. On June 10, the Council will give the microphone to terrorist-sympathizer Richard Falk. He is the UN investigator on Israel who has made a career of justifying violent “resistance” from New York to Israel to Boston. A 9/11 conspiracy theorist, Falk recently generated disgust across America for suggesting the victims of the Boston marathon terror attack were “canaries” that “have to die” because of America’s “fantasy of global domination.”

Justifies Boston Bombings as ‘Retribution’, Blames America & ‘Tel Aviv’ - Guess Who?

UN Watch Briefing..
Vol. 427..
22 April '13..

Richard Falk warns of "worse blowbacks," says “Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return”

GENEVA, April 22, 2013 – In a letter sent today to UN chief Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice (see below), UN Watch demanded the condemnation of top UN Human Rights Council official Richard Falk over his latest remarks blaming the Boston terrorist attacks on U.S. foreign policy and “Tel Aviv.”

For more on Falk, who was recently expelled by the Human Rights Watch organization yet retains his UN position, click here.

_________

His Excellency Mr. Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary-General
The United Nations
New York, NY 10017

cc: Ambassador Susan E. Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations

Via Fax

22 April 2013

Dear Mr. Secretary-General,

We write to express our outrage over yesterday’s statement by Richard Falk—a top official of the United Nations Human Rights Council—in which he justifies the Boston terrorist attacks as due “retribution” for American sins, warns of “worse blowbacks” unless America changes its foreign policy, blames “Tel Aviv” and exploits a moment of tragedy and mourning to advance a disturbing political agenda.

We urge you to condemn Mr. Falk, the UNHRC’s permanent investigator of Israel’s violations of the bases and principles of international law, for his affront to the memory of those who were killed last week, to the injured, and to the people of Boston. His remarks are a violation of your own policy that UN experts live up to the highest standards, which you set forth two years ago when you admirably rebuked Mr. Falk for spreading 9/11 conspiracy theories on his blog.

Falk’s Foreign Policy Journal article entitled “A Commentary on the Marathon Murders,” dated April 22, 2013, and annexed here, makes three ignominious points.

First, its thesis is that America is to blame for last week’s atrocity. Falk approvingly cites comments justifying the Boston Marathon bombings as “retribution” for the actions of the U.S.military in Afghanistan,Iraq and Pakistan. “The American global domination project,” says Falk, bears responsibility for provoking “all kinds of resistance” in the post-colonial world. He calls for “courage” to “connect some of these dots.” Crystallizing his justification of the terrorist attacks, he writes: “Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return.”

Meet Richard Falk, the American UN policeman for Israel.

Steve Apfel..
American Thinker..
03 January '13..

Richard Falk is a one-off type. No other cop in the world polices a whole nation -- even one no bigger than Israel -- or is duty-bound to bring the nation to book, and blow the whistle before he even sets off on his policeman rounds. And what other cop is a foreign appointee, beholden to people looking out to slap a criminal image on one scapegoat nation?

That's Richard Falk, the American UN policeman for Israel. A Princeton law professor, with facial features that Hitler and Goebbels liked to plaster around the Third Reich to orchestrate the oldest of hatreds, and unabashedly hostile to all things Jewish, Falk was lately removed from the board of Human Rights Watch, the global NGO.

That step was a long time coming. Falk is not your policeman's policeman. He has a record. There was the cartoon he posted of a Jew in the guise of a slavering dog; a cozy partisanship for the Hamas terrorist group of Gaza; the oddball book he recommended, titled The Wandering Who? and more wayward than all else, his conspiratorial beliefs. How many Western law professors can there be who espouse the 'Israel was behind 9/11' theory? It's not what you'd expect from a guardian of human rights. That, anyhow, was what the HRW board thought, looking over Falk's shoulder before telling him to go.

But poison for one body can nourish another. Members of the UN Human Rights Council, including the member for the U.S., receive and debate Falk's indictments of Israel and see in their appointed cop nothing to render him unfit for the job. So he gets to keep the grandiloquent title: 'Special Rapporteur to the UN Council on Human Rights on violation of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.'

A mouthful of a sonorous title. But broken up into chunky bites it yields the full story -- the evolutionary beliefs and commitments that lawman Falk must bring to the job.

Will U.S. Go Down with the Ship At UN Human Rights Council?

Seth Mandel..
Commentary/Contentions..
25 October '12..

One of the reasons the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement has had trouble gaining adherents is that everyone knew the movement would never just target Jews. It would begin with Israel, but surely expand to anyone deemed insufficiently hostile to Israeli companies.

And soon enough it did so, targeting American companies such as Caterpillar, which makes the type of tractor that hit Rachel Corrie, a pro-Palestinian activist attempting to shield terrorists’ weapons smuggling tunnels from the Israeli military. Since Corrie was attempting to aid those who wanted to kill Israeli civilians, you would think a “social justice” movement would spare Caterpillar its ire. But that’s not how BDS works. And so it is not surprising that such a movement has found a stalwart ally in the United Nations, an organization dedicated to protecting the world’s worst human rights violators while relentlessly targeting the Jewish state.

When the UN went looking for a special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories who embodied the world agency’s values, they settled on Richard Falk, a 9/11 truther who compared Israel to Nazi Germany. Falk hasn’t disappointed, and his latest stunt was to expand his brand of economic warfare against the Jewish state to America. Yesterday, the Washington Free Beacon reported on Falk’s belligerent threats against American companies:

Burying the Past – Faking the Future - Palestine

Richard Falk – United Nations Special Rapporteur on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967″ – provides compelling proof of how successful the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has been in its attempt to bury historical fact and international law regarding the former territory of Palestine

David Singer..
J-Wire..
17 August '12..

Mr Falk is not on his own among the United Nations coterie of organizations and officials who seem ready to try and wrest the title deeds granted to the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Palestine pursuant to the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter – following the decisions of the San Remo Conference and the signing of the Treaty of Sevres.

Former Secretary General Kofi Annan amazingly failed to include any mention of the Mandate and article 80 in his brief delivered to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2003 seeking its advisory opinion on the legality of part of Israel’s security fence being erected in the West Bank.

The ICJ’s subsequent failure to consider the effect of the Mandate and article 80 still needs to be explained – especially as one of the Presiding Judges warned that such an examination was necessary.

UNESCO maintains that Palestine is a State – when it clearly fails to comply with the requirements of the Montevideo Convention 1933.

Now Mr Falk – writing recently on his blog page – adds further fuel to the fire:

“I regard the Balfour Declaration and the mandatory system as classic colonial moves that have lost whatever legitimacy that they possessed at the time of their utterance, and prefer to view the competing claims to land and rights on the basis either of the 1948 partition proposal or the 1967 boundaries, although if there was diplomatic parity, I would respect whatever accommodation the parties reached, but without such parity, it seems necessary to invoke the allocation of rights as per settled international law.”

Mr Falk was parroting what had first appeared in Article 18 of the PLO Charter in 1964:

“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate system and all that has been based on them are considered fraud.”

But even the PLO was forced to change that viewpoint just four years later – when it recognized that if the Mandate system was a fraud, then the Mandates for Syria and Lebanon and Mesopotamia – which had delivered self determination to the Arabs in 99.999% of the captured Ottoman territory – could also be subject to challenge.

With some crafty draughtsmanship – Article 18 was replaced in 1968 with the following Article 20 in the redrafted Charter:

(Video) Monday? Hate Israel Day at the U.N.

UN Watch..
03 July '12..

GENEVA, July 2 – Despite continued killings of civilians in Syria, today the U.N.’s top human rights body devoted its entire proceedings to its ritual Hate Israel Day. A day against Israel is a permanent feature of every council meeting, under its only country-specific agenda item, entitled “the Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.”

The meeting opened with Richard Falk, the pro-Hamas 9/11 conspiracist who serves as the human rights council’s “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.” His report was followed by detailed status updates on the 2009 Goldstone Report, the 2010 Flotilla Report, and the developing council inquiry and report into settlements.

Twenty states and six non-governmental organizations took the floor this morning. UN Watch was the only one to challenge Mr. Falk. The full UN summary is here.

Shepherd - More shameful BBC propaganda against Israel

Robin Shepherd..
The Commentator..
03 May '12..



(See below for UPDATE on BBC dishonesty)*

It was another one of those do-I-laugh-or-do-I-cry moments as I came across the latest piece of flagrant anti-Israeli propaganda on the BBC‘s website.

It started off badly enough with the headline -- UN “appalled“ by Israel treatment of hunger strikers. Sorry, that’s just not a story. The UN is always “appalled“ by something to do with the Jewish state, and that’s because its members are overwhelmingly in thrall to an obsessive anti-Zionist bigotry which appears to know no bounds.

So, it was clear from the outset that this was going to be something of a gratuitous hatchet job. Then again this is the BBC, so no surprises there. But even I have to admit to having been surprised about just how gratuitous it was going to be. Here are the first two paragraphs from Yolande Knell’s story:

“A UN expert has said he is appalled by the "continuing human rights violations in Israeli prisons", as Palestinian inmates continue a mass hunger strike.

“Special Rapporteur Robert [sic] Falk said Israel had to treat hunger strikers in line with international standards.“

Oh dear, oh dear. The BBC is pinning its stories on the words of Robert Falk. Or rather, that’s Richard Falk – the BBC was obviously so excited at the prospect of a piece of Israel bashing that in the news room’s heightened state of euphoria nobody bothered to check out the man’s name. (I have remarked before that the hysteria which usually drives anti-Zionism frequently results in an abandonment of basic standards of normal behaviour and practice.)

CAMERA - UN Spews More Bias

RH
CAMERA/Snapshots
21 October '11

http://blog.camera.org/archives/2011/10/un_spews_more_bias_1.html

The other day we pointed out just what a sad joke the UN has become, with its overt, anti-Israel bias and twisting of the truth regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. Now, the unhinged UN Special Rapporteur to the Palestinian Territories Richard Falk, notorious for the anti-Semitic imagery on his blog posts and anti-American conspiracy theories, is at it again, spewing more bias and distorting the facts to twist the roles in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Perhaps to take the spotlight off the increasingly militant proclamations of the Palestinians -- like those who are calling for kidnapping another Gilad Shalit, or for those who incite Gaza schoolchildren to become martyrs and who vow to continue to carry out terrorist attacks-- Falk has twisted the story to paint the victims as Palestinian children and the villains as Israeli settlers.

Prolonged occupation deforms the development of children through pervasive deprivations affecting health, education, and overall security,” UN Special Rapporteur to the Palestinian Territories Richard Falk said in a statement to a General Assembly committee. “The insecurity of Palestinian children is aggravated in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem by settler violence and night time raids and detentions by Israeli occupation forces, house demolitions, threatened expulsions, and a host of other practices,” he added.

There have already been calls for Falk's resignation. But even if he did take a break from his anti-Israel agenda, the UN is filled with way too many like him.

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

Fresnozionism - Richard Falk apologizes to dogs for comparing them to Jews

Fresnozionism.org
07 July '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/07/richard-falk-apologizes-to-dogs-for-comparing-them-to-jews/

Richard Falk is the “UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967,” and has been viciously anti-Israel (as befits his mandate, which is to investigate “Israel’s violations of the bases and principles of international law”). For what it’s worth Falk is also a “9/11 Truther” who believes that the Bush Administration was complicit in the attacks on 9/11.

Anyway, UN Watch caught Falk with an antisemitic cartoon on his blog the other day:

Falk first denied that he had posted the cartoon, then deleted it, and ultimately admitted that he had posted it without realizing that it was antisemitic. His ‘apology’ is fascinating:

With apologies, I realize that the cartoon that originally appeared on my blog devoted to the arrest warrants for Qaddafi and two others issued by the ICC had strongly anti-semitic symbolism that I had not detected before it was pointed out to me. I posted the cartoon to express my view that double standards pertained to the American and ICC approach to international criminal accountability. As soon as I was made aware of the anti-semitic content of the cartoon I removed it from my blog, although initially I denied such a posting because I did not realize that it was anti-semitic and was mistaken as to what was being referred to…


To be clear, I oppose any denigration of a people based on ethnicity, race, religion, stage of development, and believe in the human dignity of all people in their individual and collective identity. Beyond this, if we are to have a sustainable human future we must also make peace with nature, and treat animals with as much respect as possible…

Perhaps I’m missing something, but is Falk actually apologizing to dogs for comparing them to Jews or Israelis? It certainly seems that way!

Did I add that Falk is of Jewish ancestry and has described himself as “an American Jew?” But he was unable to detect antisemitism in the cartoon?

Nothing shows the truly abominable nature of the UN more than the fact that it is prepared to employ such as Falk. He is absolutely perfect for the job, combining the antisemitism and anti-Zionism of a third-world thug with a distinguished academic career to lend him an air of respectability.

Although I’m not a psychologist, the evidence of mental unbalance in this man is beyond question. Even the UN ought to be ashamed — although UN Watch reports that his term was “quietly renewed” this March.

Perhaps he’s as crazy as a loon, but apparently he’s a useful loon.

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

UN Watch Urges UN Rights Chief to Condemn Official's Anti-Semitic Cartoon

UN Watch
www.unwatch.org
06 July 11
Press Release

For media inquiries, please telephone +41-22-734-1472 or click here.




****As I was about to post this UN Watch Press Release, a followup was sent out of Richard Falk's denial and then deletion of the cartoon. The second Press Release immediately follows this one below. YH****

GENEVA, July 6 -- UN Watch, a Geneva-based monitoring group, today called on UN rights chief Navi Pillay to condemn the publication of an anti-semitic cartoon by Richard Falk, the UN Human Rights Council's expert on Palestine.

"For the UN human rights system to be credible in the fight against racism, its own representatives must not be allowed to incite hatred and racial discrimination with impunity," wrote UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, in a letter sent today to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

"Depicting Jews as dogs and bloodthirsty has a dark history," said Neuer. "We urge Ms. Pillay to condemn this incitement to racism by a UN rights official, and to demand that Mr. Falk immediately remove the offending caricature and apologize."

The full letter follows below.

########


Ms. Navi Pillay
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Palais des Nations
1211 Geneva 10

6 July 2011

Dear Madam High Commissioner,

We write to convey our grave concern over the publication of an overtly anti-Semitic cartoon by Richard Falk, an expert of the UN Human Rights Council. We urge you—as the highest moral authority of the UN human rights system—to condemn Mr. Falk’s actions, which constitute incitement to hatred and racial discrimination as defined under Articles 1 and 4 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

Mr. Falk published the attached cartoon in his blog post of June 29. As you can see, it depicts a dog urinating on a woman symbolizing justice, and devouring a dead body with blood and bones spewing out of its mouth. The dog is shown in a garment marked “USA” and wearing a Kipa, the Jewish religious head covering, which is marked by a Star of David. The cartoon is manifestly anti-Semitic and, before a worldwide Internet audience, incites hatred against Jews as well as against Americans.

We are aware that mandate-holders are answerable only to the Council, and that Mr. Falk and his supporters will claim that the cartoon was published in his “personal capacity.” As you know, however, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in identical circumstances, unequivocally ruled that Mr. Falk has “a clear responsibility to uphold the high standards of the United Nations and the Council.” Accordingly, the Secretary-General twice condemned Mr. Falk for having propagated the 9/11 conspiracy theory and insulting the memory of the 3,000 victims of that attack. Likewise, in 2005, your predecessor, High Commissioner Louise Arbour did not hesitate to condemn expert Jean Ziegler for what she described as his “inflammatory” and “highly irresponsible” remarks.

For the UN human rights system to be credible in the fight against racism, its own representatives must not be allowed to incite hatred and racial discrimination with impunity. We urge you to speak out.
Sincerely,


Hillel C. Neuer
Executive Director

UN Watch is a Geneva-based human rights organization founded in 1993 to monitor UN compliance with the principles of its Charter. It is accredited as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Special Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and as an Associate NGO to the UN Department of Public Information.


===========================================

UN Watch Briefing  Latest from the United Nations

Vol. 301  |  July 6, 2011

Timeline: Falk’s reaction

Published by 

UN Watch

 - at July 6, 2011 in human rights council (unhrc).0 Comments

Reaction: UN’s Falk Denies, Then Deletes Anti-Semitic Cartoon

After UN Watch today exposed his publication of an anti-Semitic cartoon, the UN Human Rights Council’s Richard Falk first denied publishing the cartoon—and then deleted it. See his blog here.

For those wishing to see a screen-capture of the original post prior to its deletion by Falk, please click here. And as of the sending of this briefing, Mr. Falk has still not deleted the cartoon from his blog’s image database.

• Falk’s first reaction today to UN Watch: “It is a complete lie. I know nothing about such a cartoon, and would never publish such a thing, ever.”

  

• A reader tells him:  “Look at your own blog post.http://richardfalk.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/images-71.jpeg“

   

• Falk: “Maybe I do not understand the cartoon, and if it offends in this way I have removed it from the blog. It may be in bad taste to an extent I had not earlier appreciated, but I certainly didn’t realize that it could be viewed as anti-semitic, and still do not realize.”

The simple fact is that Mr. Falk has routinely supported and praised anti-Semites from Iran’s Ahmadinejad to the Hamas terrorist organization. It’s no wonder that he still doesn’t realize the problem.

UN Watch once again calls on UN rights chief Navi Pillay to condemn Mr. Falk’s act of hatred, only the latest in his pattern and practice of legitimizing murderers, terrorists and anti-Semites. We salute other human rights groups that have pledged to add their voices in calling on Ms. Pillay to take action.

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.