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Hillel Neuer
International human rights lawyer, writer & activist

Israel is ‘genocidal,’ says UN’s Richard Falk in TV interview

The senior UN official continues making his scurrilous claims and it's up to the United States to put a stop to it

He’s done it again: Richard Falk, whom the United Nations ranks as a top official, has accused Israel of targeting Palestinians with “genocidal intent.”

http://youtu.be/4GwApvroWkE?t=3m30s

Falk is the UN Human Rights Council’s permanent investigator of “Israel’s violations of the principles and bases of international law.”

Here is the transcript from the scurrilous program broadcast multiple times on Sunday and Monday by Russia Today to a global TV audience, and now being played on the Internet:

RT: “The UN’s special rapporteur on human rights warns ‘the world is slouching towards nothing less than a Palestinian Holocaust.’ Professor Richard Falk thank you very much for joining us. Why is this behavior actually genocidal?”

Professor Richard Falk, UN human rights rapporteur: “When you target a group, an ethnic group, and inflict this kind of punishment upon them, you are in effect nurturing a kind of criminal intention that is genocidal.”

Falk uses his imprimatur as a UN official to make the grievously false accusation that Israel is acting with “genocidal intent” and perpetrating a “Holocaust.”

If Israel really is “genocidal,” it only follows logically that Falk will justify violence against Israelis, as he did in a recent blog post, berating “demands by Israel that Palestinians renounce violence” while Israel “sustains a structure of occupation and oppression.”

It’s time for the the U.S. to at least attempt to remove the 9/11 conspiracy theorist and Hamas supporter from his post—and to eliminate his prejudicial and outdated Human Rights Council mandate.

UN Watch today sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urging him to condemn Falk. When the name of the world body is misused to promote specious canards—and as an odious warrant for terrorism—the UN chief has a moral duty to speak out.

But the truth is that Falk, like other Human Rights Council appointees, answers only to the U.S. and the 46 other member states of the UNHRC. In this case, the buck does not stop with Ban Ki-moon; it stops with Samantha Power, U.S. ambassador to the UN. That is why I have urged her, in a UN Watch letter sent today, to take action.

(You can do it too, by clicking here to send Ambassador Power a message.)

And because the Obama Administration—more than any other country, and even more than the UN itself—has forcefully promoted the narrative that the UNHRC has been made credible, effective, and authoritative, the U.S. bears a special responsibility to initiate the removal of Falk.

Recall that only a few years ago, as revealed by Wikileaks, it was the Palestinians themselves who tried to remove Richard Falk.

In reacting to previous outrages by Falk, the U.S. merely asked the former academic to voluntarily resign; he refused. The U.S. must now take action to remove him.

This it can do by formally endorsing the draft resolution prepared by UN Watch.

Moreover, the U.S. should act to eliminate the mandate itself: the UNHRC’s permanent investigation of Israel, unchanged after 20 years, which examines the actions of only one side, and presumes guilt in advance.

In 2014, we will finally see some movement against inequality: Israel will finally be accepted into one of the council’s regional groups, the Western group, and EU and other Western countries have agreed not to participate in the hateful day against Israel that is held at every council session.

It will be equally fitting if, after 20 years of investigating “Israel’s violations of the principles and bases of international law,” 2014 is also the year when this unjust, one-sided and prejudicial mandate is removed as well.

About the Author
Hillel Neuer is executive director of UN Watch, a non-governmental human rights organization in Geneva, Switzerland. An international lawyer, Neuer has been described by the Tribune de Genève as a human rights activist who is “feared and dreaded” by the world’s dictatorships. Israel's Ma’ariv newspaper ranked Neuer as one of the “Top 100 Most Influential Jewish People in the World.” Hillel Neuer is a renowned speaker who has published widely, testified before the United Nations and the U.S. Congress, and appeared on CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera. On September 14, 2016, the City of Chicago adopted a resolution declaring “Hillel Neuer Day” in recognition of his work as “one of the world’s foremost human rights advocates.” In June 2018, McGill University awarded Neuer with an honorary Doctor of Laws degree, citing his work as “an innovator” in “creating global platforms for courageous dissidents and champions of human rights from around the world,” and for being “a passionate advocate for human rights, fighting tirelessly against discrimination, torture, and injustice."
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