PRESS RELEASE
NEW YORK, January 28, 2011 – UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer issued the following statement today in response to the press release issued today by UN expert Richard Falk, in which the latter resorts to ad hominem attacks on UN Watch to defend his endorsement of the notorious 9/11 conspiracy theories of David Ray Griffin.
Response to Richard Falk’s 28 January UN Press Release
UN Watch calls on U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and High Commissioner Navi Pillay to condemn the specious attempt today by Richard Falk—in the form an official press release distributed by the UN—to explain away his latest endorsement of the conspiracy theory that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were orchestrated by the U.S. government and not Al Qaeda.
Mr. Falk’s statement is replete with deliberate misrepresentations, and his desperate resort to ad hominem attacks only underscores his complete inability to justify his inexcusable actions.
It is clear that Mr. Falk is becoming an embarrassment to the United Nations as whole, and it is time for the Secretary-General, the UN Human Rights Council president, and the High Commissioner for Human Rights to call for Mr. Falk to be removed.
The plain facts, all of which are omitted in Mr. Falk’s U.N. press release, are as follows:
– On January 11, 2011, Mr. Falk wrote on his blog that, “There are, to be sure, conspiracies that promote unacknowledged goals, and enjoy the benefit of government protection… The arguments swirling around the 9/11 attacks are emblematic of these issues. What fuels suspicions of conspiracy is the reluctance to address the sort of awkward gaps and contradictions in the official explanations that David Ray Griffin (and other devoted scholars of high integrity) have been documenting in book after book ever since his authoritative The New Pearl Harbor in 2004 (updated in 2008).”
– In writing the above, Mr. Falk clearly asserted the existence of 9/11 “conspiracies,” and he unequivocally endorsed the notorious 9/11 conspiracy tract, The New Pearl Harbor as an “authoritative” book, and its author, David Ray Griffin, as a “devoted scholar of high integrity.” The main thesis of this book is that the World Trade Center was not attacked by terrorists, but was rather “an inside job.” (See book’s quotes here.)
– Mr. Falk’s comments are only the latest manifestation in his years-long campaign to promote Griffin’s conspiracy tracts. In fact, Mr. Falk himself wrote the Foreword to The New Pearl Harbor, praising the book as “extraordinary,” “so special” and as having “the potentiality to become a force of history.” (Click here for HTML, and here for scanned copy.) Falk’s endorsement is printed on the book jacket, as the first one.
– In the book’s Acknowledgments, author David Ray Griffin recognized the material role played by Mr. Falk in the publishing of the book. Griffin says that he is “indebted to Richard Falk for reasons that go beyond his gracious willingness to write the Foreword. It was through his influence that I first began working on global political matters… And it was through him that I became connected with Olive Branch Press of Interlink Publishing,” the publisher of the book. “I am especially grateful for this connection.” (Click here for original source.)
– According to Griffin, Mr. Falk tried to promote the book by soliciting an endorsement from leading anti-American activist Noam Chomsky. “Richard Falk wrote to Chomsky and he said, ‘I think you should read this manuscript. My friend David Griffin has been a great admirer of yours; he’s built on your work. He would love to have a blurb from you. Chomsky wrote back and said Dick, ‘No, I will not read your friend Griffin’s book.’” (Source.)
– Mr. Falk has used his UN imprimatur to promote the 9/11 conspiracy theory. In Falk’s November 2008 article entitled “9/11: More than meets the eye”, published in The Journal, a Scottish newspaper, he signed in his UN capacity, as “an appointee to two United Nations positions on the Palestinian territories.” Falk’s article implied that the 9/11 attacks were committed by “the established elites of the American governmental structure.” The article praised the work of David Ray Griffin. (Source.)
Mr. Falk’s press release deliberately omits all of the above. By attempting to justify his despicable denial of Al Qaeda’s carrying-out of the 9/11 attacks as a mere call for “investigations,” Mr. Falk resorts to the same transparent tactics used by Iran’s Ahmadinejad and other hate-mongers who seek to deny other great atrocities of history, each with their own hateful political agenda.
Mr. Falk’s ad hominem attacks on UN Watch are a pathetic attempt to divert attention from his own actions. UN Watch, founded in Geneva in 1993, is an internationally-respected human rights group, accredited as a NGO in special consultative status with the United Nations.
