This week U.N. chief Antonio Guterres swore in Iraqi ambassador Mohammed al-Hakim as director of ESCWA in Beirut.

Report on U.N. Social Media Posts Accusing Israel of ‘Apartheid’
Study of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia – ESCWA

Executive Summary
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres just swore in a new head of ESCWA, the UN regional agency for the Middle East that is composed of 18 Arab states, and based in Beirut. Israel has been excluded from the time the agency was founded four decades ago.
In March, Mr. Guterres rightly took action to remove ESCWA’s unauthorized publication of a politicized report—co-authored by Richard Falk, a discredited former UN official who was condemned by Ban Ki-moon for promoting 9/11 conspiracy theories—that demonized Israel as an “Apartheid” state.
As stated by Mr. Guterres, the Executive Secretary of ESCWA is “a representative of the Secretary-General.” As such, Mr. Guterres is obliged to uphold UN discipline regarding posts that single out a member states in contravention of the UN Charter.
ESCWA Speeches and Posts Demonizing Israel
Despite Mr. Guterres’ clear and unequivocal stand in March, numerous ESCWA webpages, Facebook posts, and tweets continue to display this same “Israel Apartheid” slur.
For example, on 6 March, Mr. Guterres’ then-representative Rima Khalaf abused the occasion of International Women’s Day at UN House in Beirut—with Mr. Guterres’ photo on display, and right after his message was read—to attack “the Israeli apartheid regime.” A room full of UN officials heard it, yet failed to object. Ms. Khalaf is gone, yet her obscene remarks are still online on the UN site.Likewise, ESCWA’s Facebook page includes the following posts, dating from 2014 to 2017:

• “Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state”;
• Israeli practices “amount to apartheid”;
• the Palestinian people are being “subjected to an apartheid system.”
• In one post still online, Mr. Guterres’ then-representative even called for the “overthrow” of “the Israeli apartheid regime.

In this new UN Watch report, we document below at least 20 different UN publications or posts that demonize Israel as an “apartheid” state.
Former secretary-general Kofi Annan rightly described the General Assembly’s 1975 “Zionism is Racism” resolution as the low point of the UN’s experience with antisemitism. ESCWA’s “Israel apartheid” slurs are but the latest reincarnation of the same libel—and we urge Mr. Guterres to order them removed immediately.
ESCWA Facebook post, Sept. 18, 2014, still online:

Post 118/181: “Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state.”
– Hendrik Verwoerd, “Architect” of South Africa’s apartheid, 1961
#IYSSP #Palestine #181Days
https://www.facebook.com/unescwa/photos/a.184008491687822.48671.101880746567264/710567062365293/?type=3
 
ESCWA Facebook post, September 28, 2014, still online
Post 125/181: In 2013, Israeli authorities and settlers burned and uprooted 10,142 trees next to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. For more information: https://tinyurl.com/unctad1
#IYSSP #Palestine #181Days #Apartheid
https://www.facebook.com/unescwa/photos/a.184008491687822.48671.101880746567264/715351815220151/?type=3&theater
 
ESCWA Facebook post, Oct. 1, 2014, still online
Post 128/181
UN-ESCWA Resolution 316 (XXVIII) of 18 September 2014:
“… practices and policies of the Israeli occupation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which amount to apartheid, cause a continuous deterioration of their economic and social conditions…”
https://www.escwa.un.org/about/gov/sessions/editor/Download.asp?table_name=sess26_menu&field_name=ID&FileID=193
#IYSSP #Palestine #181Days #Apartheid
https://www.facebook.com/unescwa/photos/a.184008491687822.48671.101880746567264/716638658424800/?type=3
 
 
ESCWA Facebook post, March 15, 2017, still online
Richard Falk: It’s vitally important that the people of the world understand that the Palestinian people as a whole have and are being subjected to an apartheid system

https://www.facebook.com/unescwa/posts/1302933763128617
 
[Translation] “Khalaf: The report calls upon nations, governments and institutions to support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions initiatives (#BDS), and other initiatives which aim to overthrow [Iskat] the Israeli apartheid regime.”
[Note: Word Iskat in this context can mean violent overthrow,  wiping out, or taking down of an entity.]
https://www.facebook.com/unescwa/posts/1302931366462190
ESCWA posts same Rima Khalaf “Israeli apartheid” quote on Twitter:

#خلف: وفي التقرير دعوة للدول والحكومات والمؤسسات إلى دعم مبادرات المقاطعة وسحب الاستثمارات وفرض العقوبات (BDS#)،… https://t.co/JXnmXW76a4

— ESCWA (@UNESCWA) March 15, 2017

#Israel ‘s political &geographical fragmentation of the #Palestinian people is a tool of oppression and domination #Apartheid
https://www.facebook.com/unescwa/posts/1302907439797916
 
In one hour, #ESCWA launches report on“#Israeli Practices towards the #Palestinian People and the Question of #Apartheid”
https://www.facebook.com/unescwa/posts/1302888706466456
Arabic:
https://www.facebook.com/unescwa/posts/1302885636466763
#Tilley: the key finding is that Israel has designed its apartheid regime around a strategic fragmentation of the Palestinian people geographically & legally
https://www.facebook.com/unescwa/posts/1302942803127713
 
#Tilley: reference for a finding of #apartheid in #IsraelPalestine is not #South Africa but international law
https://www.facebook.com/unescwa/posts/1302941126461214
 
#Tilley: there are many references to #apartheid in polemics on the #Israel#Palestine conflict
https://www.facebook.com/unescwa/posts/1302939036461423
 
#Tilley: it has become entirely clear that we’re longer talking about risk of Apartheid but practice of #Apartheid
https://www.facebook.com/unescwa/posts/1302937453128248
 
The report “Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid” is available on: https://bit.ly/2mZVYe3
https://www.facebook.com/unescwa/posts/1302952766460050
[presents report on “Israeli Apartheid”]
https://www.facebook.com/unescwa/posts/1303070739781586
Arabic: https://www.facebook.com/unescwa/posts/1303066909781969
 
ESCWA tweets on “Israeli Apartheid”:

#خلف: ويبين التقرير أن لا حل في حل الدولتين أو في أي مقاربة إقليمية أو دولية ما لم يتم تفكيك نظام الأبارتايد الذي… https://t.co/NtdgwaEaOw

— ESCWA (@UNESCWA) March 15, 2017

https://twitter.com/ESCWACIU/status/842017095319732225
https://twitter.com/ESCWACIU/status/842016107942821888
https://twitter.com/ESCWACIU/status/842008054916878336
https://twitter.com/ESCWACIU/status/841999967904493568
 
March 15, 2017
ESCWA Website: United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) Rima Khalaf noted that Israel… has succeeded over the past decades in imposing and maintaining an apartheid regime. Khalaf concluded that the report recognizes that only a ruling by an international tribunal would lend its conclusion that Israel is an apartheid State greater authority… It also calls on States, Governments and institutions to support boycott, divestment and sanctions initiatives and other activities aimed at ending the Israeli regime of apartheid.
https://www.unescwa.org/news/escwa-launches-report-israeli-practices-towards-palestinian-people-and-question-apartheid
 
Nov. 29, 2016 [UN Palestine Day]
Rima Khalaf: “Wherever they may be, Palestinians have suffered from the discriminatory policies pursued by successive Israeli Governments. Attempts by one ethnic or religious group to dominate another are inherently no different from the apartheid regime that the world thought had been eradicated in South Africa in the 1990s.”  Khalaf addressed a crowd of diplomats, governmental and civil society representatives who had gathered at the UN House to commemorate the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, which ESCWA has hosted for years.
https://www.unescwa.org/news/palestine-day-beirut
 
Translation: Trying ethnic group/religious control over another group is essentially identical to the policy of apartheid (apartheid)

#خلف: إن محاولة مجموعة عرقية/دينية السيطرة على مجموعة أخرى، هي في جوهرها مطابقة لسياسة الفصل العنصري (الأبارتايد)

— ESCWA (@UNESCWA) November 29, 2016

 
March 6, 2017, UN Women’s Day
After remarks of UN chief Antonio Guterres were read out, in the presence of the Australian and other ambassadors, Rima Khalaf addressed UN Beirut’s 2017 International Women’s Day: “Those [Palestinians] who have survived all this are suffering under a system of racial segregation that punishes them because of their racial origin.. A regional solution which is promoted by pressing regional parties to compromise on the rights of the Palestinians and the Arabs… will not give legitimacy to the Israeli Apartheid regime, but would delegitimize those complicit with regional parties.”  Click here for speech, photos, summary.
 

The post Report: U.N.'s Mideast Agency Obsessed with 'Israeli Apartheid' appeared first on UN Watch.

________

March 19, 2017
Dear Prime Minister May,
In a recent speech, you said, “I made sure we kept extremism—including the sort that peddles anti-Semitic vitriol—out of our country,” and you cited your barring of antisemites like Dieudonné, and your expulsion of terror supporters like Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada.
In that regard, we wish to inform you that Mr. Richard Falk—a disgraced ex-UN official who was officially denounced by the United Kingdom on at least three separate occasions for antisemitism, and whose glorification of the Hamas terrorist group was so severe that the Palestinian Authority sought to expel him from the UN—is currently in your country, and is planning to speak this week at various events in London.
We urge your government to examine the following facts and legal precedents, and to consider whether to expel this exponent of antisemitism and glorifier of Jihadist terrorism from the UK.
(a) UK Condemnations of Richard Falk for Racism
1. Diplomatic practice for the UK and European Union member states is to avoid publicly criticizing United Nations human rights experts. That Mr. Falk is the only UN expert in history to have been condemned for racism by Britain, or any other member state of the European Union, speaks volumes.
2. In 2011, British Prime Minister David Cameron “strongly condemned” Mr. Falk’s publication of an antisemitic cartoon. The image posted by Mr. Falk on his blog showed a dog wearing a Jewish head-covering urinating on a depiction of justice, and devouring a bloody skeleton. Falk was also condemned for this racist act by British MPs David Burrowes and Theresa Villiers.
3. In 2012, the British Foreign Office condemned Mr. Falk for providing the cover endorsement of a virulently antisemitic book that describes Jews as Nazis, and which asks whether “Hitler might have been right after all.” The UK Mission in Geneva protested in a demarche to the UN human rights office, expressing London’s “serious concerns.” The book endorsed by Mr. Falk, “The Wandering Who,” accuses “the Jews” of being “the only people who managed to maintain and sustain a racially orientated, expansionist and genocidal national identity that is not at all different from Nazi ethnic ideology.”
4. Notably, this antisemitic book publicly endorsed by Mr. Falk was denounced by even the most ardent anti-Israel activists in the UK, condemned as racist, for example, by Electronic Intifada founder Ali Abunimah. Likewise, Tony Greenstein, a member of the English group “Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods,” rebuked Mr. Falk for having endorsed the antisemitic book as a “transformative” work.
5. In April 2013, the UK Mission to the United Nations condemned Mr. Falk’s comments which blamed the Boston terrorist attack on “the American global domination project” and “Tel Aviv.” The UK Mission determined that Mr. Falk’s remarks were “antisemitic.” Indeed, the UK Mission highlighted that this was “the third time we have had cause to express our concerns about Mr Falk’s antisemitic remarks.” Mr. Falk was also denounced at the time by the Secretary-General of the United Nations and other world leaders.
6. The above UK condemnation of Mr. Falk was reconfirmed two months later, in June 2013, by Ms. Philippa Thompson, Deputy Team Leader of the Equality and Non-Discrimination Team within the Human Rights & Democracy Department of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
7. The Foreign Office’s UK Non-Discrimination Team determined that Mr. Falk’s writings were “resonant of the longstanding antisemitic practice of blaming Jews (through the State of Israel by proxy) for all that is wrong in the world.”
8. Mr. Falk’s blog is replete with additional crude antisemitic comments by contributors whom he defends and praises, racist material fostering hatred which has he has refused to remove. For example:

• “The Protocols [of the Elders of Zion] is an uncannily accurate description of what is happening right now.”
• “The world is beginning to understand just how toxic Jewish religious practice and cultural indoctrination really is.”
• “Judaism is a pyramid scheme of social shaming leading to great accumulation of wealth by those at the apex.”

(b) Palestinians Sought to Expel Falk Over Hamas Support & Holocaust Statements
9. Mr. Falk and his supporters seek to cast all of his critics as exclusively Israel supporters. The facts show otherwise. As revealed in a Wikileaks cable dated February 16, 2010, the Palestinian Authority sought to expel Falk from the UN, on grounds, as he admitted himself that he is a “partisan of Hamas.” The Palestinians also objected to Falk’s controversial comments about the Holocaust.
10. Mr. Falk has additionally been denounced by former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the Canadian government, former U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, anti-racist organizations, and members of parliament from around the world. (See enclosed summary in our 2013 draft resolution, circulated as United Nations document A/HRC/23/NGO/27.)
(c) UK Law and Precedent Justify Expelling Richard Falk for Racism
11. On the basis of UK law and precedent, and based on Mr. Falk’s actions which prompted the UK government to publicly condemn him for racism and antisemitism on three separate occasions, he should be expelled from the UK.
12. As you know, the Home Secretary has the power to exclude an individual “if she considers that his or her presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good or if their exclusion is justified on public policy grounds.” The Home Office has noted that “[c]oming to the UK is a privilege, and we expect those who come here to respect our shared values.”
13. Because the UK has publicly and repeatedly condemned Mr. Falk for fostering antisemitism, it is indisputable that his presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good; that he does not respect your shared values of opposing antisemitism; and that, accordingly, Mr. Falk does not merit the privilege of visiting the UK.
14. In the past, the UK has barred or expelled numerous individuals for actions that never even rose to the level of having prompted multiple, prior British government condemnations for racism. For example, in 2015, in your former position as Home Secretary, you barred U.S. rapper Tyler the Creator from entry because he brought himself “within the scope of the list of unacceptable behaviour by making statements that may foster hatred, which might lead to intercommunity violence in the UK.” Likewise, Mr. Falk’s repeated verbal attacks on the collective Jewish people, as documented above, may foster hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK.
15. As you noted in your December speech, you have barred several individuals on grounds of “Islamophobia.” In 2011, the UK barred U.S. Pastor Terry Jones. The Home Office explained that the UK “opposes extremism in all its forms which is why we have excluded Pastor Terry Jones from the UK. Numerous comments made by Pastor Jones are evidence of his unacceptable behaviour.” Likewise, Mr. Falk’s extremism and racism have been denounced by the UK, the UN Secretary General and world leaders, and constitute evidence of his unacceptable behavior.
16. Others barred from the UK on similar grounds include U.S. radio host Michael Savage; Fred Phelps and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper of the Westboro Baptist Church; preacher and Hamas MP Yunis Al Astal; Stephen Donald Black of the Ku Klux Klan. Like journalists or religious preachers, academics or supposed human rights experts such as Mr. Falk do not enjoy immunity for their racist incitement or for their glorification of terrorist violence by Hamas and other groups.
For all of these reasons, we urge you to consider expelling Mr. Falk from the United Kingdom forthwith.
Sincerely,
Hillel C. Neuer
Executive Director
United Nations Watch
Geneva, Switzerland

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Earlier this week, U.S. ambassador Nikki Haley welcomed remarks by Guterres’ spokesman distancing himself from the report, but she demanded that the UN “withdraw the report altogether.”
“When someone issues a false and defamatory report in the name of the UN,” said Haley today in reaction, “it is appropriate that the person resign. UN agencies must do a better job of eliminating false and biased work, and I applaud the Secretary-General’s decision to distance his good office from it.”
“Guterres deserves credit for doing the right thing,” said Hillel Neuer, who sparred with Falk repeatedly during the latter’s fraught 6-year term as the UN Human Rights Council’s investigator of alleged Israeli violations.
“But there is no question that the initial moral voice here was that of U.S. ambassador Nikki Haley, and that it was U.S. leverage which prompted the UN to act.”

The post Pressured by Nikki Haley, U.N. Pulls Richard Falk's 'Apartheid' Israel Report, Head of Arab U.N. Agency Resigns appeared first on UN Watch.

The United States is outraged by the report of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). That such anti-Israel propaganda would come from a body whose membership nearly universally does not recognize Israel is unsurprising. That it was drafted by Richard Falk, a man who has repeatedly made biased and deeply offensive comments about Israel and espoused ridiculous conspiracy theories, including about the 9/11 terrorist attacks, is equally unsurprising. The United Nations Secretariat was right to distance itself from this report, but it must go further and withdraw the report altogether. The United States stands with our ally Israel and will continue to oppose biased and anti-Israel actions across the UN system and around the world.

Dear @Reuters: Your story on report accusing Israel of "apartheid"—by a UN agency of 18 Arab states—omitted 10 key facts about its author. ➠ pic.twitter.com/U7Er71cymv

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) March 16, 2017

1/ Author of the report is Richard Falk @rfalk13—one of the world's top supporters of 9/11 conspiracy theorists. https://t.co/OOO5qdXg4s

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) March 16, 2017

ABOUT RICHARD FALK
Falk Blamed Boston Terror Attacks on U.S. & Israel
Richard Falk sought to blame the April 2013 Boston terrorist attack, which left 4 dead and 300 wounded, on “the American global domination project” and “Tel Aviv.” Falk was condemned by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who said his comments “undermine the credibility and the work of the United Nations.”  U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said that “someone who spews such vitriol has no place at the UN,” and noted the “absurdity” of Mr. Falk’s continued service. The British Mission to the United Nations condemned Falk’s “antisemitic” remarks, highlighting it was the third time they had to do so. Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird  condemned Falk’s “mean-spirited, anti-Semitic rhetoric,” and noted that “the United Nations should be ashamed to even be associated with such an individual. Members of the U.S. Congress, Democrats and Republicans, including Rep. Mike Kelly, Senator Robert Menendez, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rep. Doug Lamborn, Rep. Eliot Engel and Rep. Trent Franks, also condemned Falk.

Human Rights Watch Expelled Falk
Human Rights Watch expelled Falk in December 2012, following the United Nations Watch complaint about his ethical breaches.

PLO Tried to Oust Falk Over His Support of Hamas
As the UN’s rapporteur on Palestine, Falk was so extreme in his support for the Hamas terrorist organization that even the Palestinian Authority tried to remove him, on grounds that he was a “partisan of Hamas”:

Richard Falk, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, said on Monday the Palestinian Authority urged him to step down after he criticized the PA’s treatment of a UN war crimes report… Falk said PA officials formally approached him in February asking him to resign… “Informally they say different things, things that are essentially untrue, that my health doesn’t me allow to do the job or that I’m a partisan of Hamas.”

See also Wikileaks cable here:

Also on February 16, in a separate conversation with Charge and PolCouns, PA DPR Zuhairi was visibly upset by Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the OPT Richard Falk’s reference to Hamas in his draft report. In para 8, Falk states that UNGA resolution 64/10 calls on Hamas – vice the PA – to undertake investigations. Zuhairi argued that he had too often corrected Falk’s many errors and that this latest misguided effort by Falk had gone too far… In light of the reference to Hamas, Zuhairi said he had called Falk personally and asked him to step down, something Falk angrily rejected. Zuhairi sought our advice on how best to approach the issue, particularly in light of currently OIC and African Group attempts to censure the secret detention study. Charge and PolCouns, while acknowledging the problem of recognizing Hamas, told Zuhairi that the U.S. defended the independence of the special procedures mandate holders and that we objected to state’s use of the code of conduct as a means to muzzle rapporteurs.

U.N. Rights Chief & PM David Cameron, Condemned Falk for Antisemitic Cartoon
Falk published on his website a cartoon showing a dog wearing a Jewish head covering, and with “USA” written on its body, urinating on a depiction of justice and devouring a bloody skeleton, for which he was condemned by British Prime Minister David Cameron and other public figures, including UN rights chief Navi Pillay.
UK Condemned Falk for Endorsing Antisemitic Book “The Wandering Who”
Falk’s cover endorsement of a virulently antisemitic book entitled “The Wandering Who” was act condemned by the British Foreign Office.
Falk Accused Israel of Planning “Palestinian Holocaust”
In 2007, Falk accused Israel of planning a “Palestinian Holocaust.”

U.N. Chief Condemned Falk for 9/11 Conspiracy Theories
Falk has become one of the world’s most high-profile supporters of 9/11 conspiracy theorists, lending his name to those who accuse the U.S. government of orchestrating the destruction of the Twin Towers as a pretext to launch wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He promotes the writings of David Ray Griffin, a disciple and close friend of Mr. Falk who has produced 12 books describing the World Trade Center attack as “an inside job.”
Falk contributed the Foreword to Griffin’s 2004 book “The New Pearl Harbor,” where he praised the author’s “patience,” “fortitude,” “courage,” and “intelligence.” In turn, Griffin credits Falk for getting the book published.
Falk has repeatedly appeared on the “TruthJihad.com” show of Kevin Barrett, a 9/11 conspiracy theorist and Holocaust skeptic who rails against the “ethnic Jews” who he says run Washington and the media, a show on which Falk has endorsed Barrett’s “good work” while also praising Iranian tyrant Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In 2011, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon took the floor of the Human Rights Council to issue an unprecedented condemnation of Mr. Falk’s 9/11 remarks, saying they were “preposterous” and “an affront to the memory of the more than 3,000 people who died in that tragic terrorist attack.”
U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice denounced Falk’s 9/11 remarks as “despicable and deeply offensive,” condemned his “one-sided and politicized approach,” deplored his comments for being “so noxious that it should finally be plain to all that he should no longer continue in his position,” and noted that “the cause of human rights will be better advanced without Mr. Falk and the distasteful sideshow he has chosen to create.”

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The latest attack echoed a Falk tirade against UN Watch in a recent TV interview, where he justified Hamas’ use of violence, while at the same time insisting that the organization aims for peaceful co-existence.” Falk was so strong a supporter of Hamas that, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, the PLO secretly tried to fire him.
Falk, who was to headline an anti-Israel academic conference in the UK before it was canceled by the University of Southampton, devoted most of his Washington address to how UN Watch succeeded in getting him denounced by world figures for his statements supporting conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks and the Boston Marathon bombings. (For a list of such statements by Falk, click here.)
“With incredible persistence, UN Watch, the most aggressive of the Quasi-NGOs, exclusively used the opportunity of ‘interactive dialogue’ in Geneva sessions of the Human Right Council to give voice to their denuncation of my character and activities,” wrote Falk in his prepared remarks for the Washington conference on “The Israeli Lobby.”
“Afterwards UN Watch circulated in the form of an organizational letter these defamatory attacks to prominent international personalities, including high-ranking civil servants in the UN itself, such as the UN Secretary General, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and a variety of ambassadors of countries friendly to Israel. Characteristically, the letter ended with a demand that I be dismissed from my post as Special Rapporteur.”
“It was particularly disturbing to me that these defamatory attacks were treated as credible on their face by supposedly responsible prominent UN officials and government representative without the slightest effort to conduct an independent investigation or the minimal courtesy of checking either with me or with the sources that were being relied upon to put forward these defamatory assertions,” Falk added.
“Endorsements [of the UN Watch defamatory attacks] by supposedly responsible public figures was damaging to my reputation, and helped to divert attention from fashioning appropriate responses to the substantive grievances of the Palestinian people, and hence also indirectly damaged the reputation and effectiveness of the UN.”
“On more than one occasion the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon denounced me without making the slightest attempt to assess the accuracy of the views attributed to me in such UN Watch letters that referred in discrediting and misleading ways to material from my blog where I discussed in some detail the 9/11 attacks and the international context of the 2013 bombing at the Boston Marathon.”
“After the first of these attacks by the UN Secretary-General, I tried to find out why as someone working without salary on behalf of the UN was not given the opportunity to at least explain my views. When I tried to probe the matter by seeking an explanation, I was told somewhat apologetically by a close associate of the SG that the failure to take account of my actual views was due to the fact that ‘we didn’t do due diligence.’”

Because of UN Watch protests, Ban Ki-moon denounced Richard Falk, the first time in history that a UN chief condemned one of his own human rights officials. Though Falk left the UN last year, he repeatedly complains that UN Watch “damaged” his reputation, ability to function, and academic career.

“He added that at the time the UN felt ‘under pressure from the U.S. Congress to show that the Organization were not hostile to Israel.’ It was a sensitive moment as Ban Ki-Moon was seeking U.S. support for reappointment to a second term.”
“In a similar vein, the U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, and later Samantha Power, denounced me as biased, and deserving dismissal. When I sought some explanation from Ambassador Rice my overly polite letter remains unanswered.”
“These pro-Israeli Quasi-NGOs stir up trouble for those who are doing their best to document Israel’s flagrant violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights standards.”
“A major purpose of these tactics in response to well-evidenced documentation of Israeli state crime is to mobilize opposition on the part of government officials, especially in the U.S., but also Canada, UK, and Australia, and induce the pro-Israeli media to focus on controversies involving critics, rather than the criticisms, emanating from UN activities.”
“One result of these repeated personal attacks along these lines is, by their mere repetition, useful in making the UN generally, and the Human Rights Council in particular, seem to be arenas dominated by individuals biased against Israel, and even anti-Semitic.”
“I can report that in my experience at the UN, including the Human Rights Council, the Organization has consistently leaned over backward to give Israel the benefit of the doubt.”
 

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_______________

New Inquiry Chief Mary McGowan Davis: “Need to adjust our work due to late resignation of former chair William Schabas”

In an unexpected development, the UN commission of inquiry into the 2014 Gaza conflict, scheduled to report on March 23rd, has requested a delay until June.
The president of the UN Human Rights Council, Ambassador Joachim Ruecker of Germany, said that he supported the request, however nothing has yet been formally decided.
Mary McGowan Davis, who replaced William Schabas as chair after it was revealed that he performed paid legal work for the PLO, said that the commission needed the delay “to adjust our work due to the late resignation of its former chair.”
Moreover, she said the probe must analyze “with utmost objectivity” a large number of submissions received over past weeks from both sides.
UN Watch was the first to formally request a delay when it met the commissioners privately in September, arguing the need for the probe to be thorough and not rushed, and to allow the parties to conduct their own inquiries without being pre-empted by the UN.
At the time, both Schabas and McGowan Davis abruptly dismissed the idea. This week, however, the commission suddenly argued that a delay was needed: the issues are “complex,” it said, and “weighing the facts and considering the legal questions that arise is something that should not be rushed under any circumstances.”
 
Schabas Interviews With 9/11 Truther Richard Falk; Both Blast UN Watch

Falk: “I was subject to continuous defamatory attacks spearheaded by UN Watch, a notorious NGO”

Schabas: “UN Watch and its friends howled” against me, “charges of bias were a witch-hunt, reminiscent of McCarthyism”

In one of his first acts after resigning in disgrace from the UN’s Gaza probe, William Schabas decided to give an interview to equally disgraced former UN official Richard Falk. He joined the 9/11 Truther in blasting UN Watch.
Falk opened his interview by saying that “prominent individuals” who dare to criticize Israel are constantly subjected to false charges of bias.
“This was my experience as Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine during the entire period of 2008-2014,” writes Falk, “in which I was subject to continuous defamatory attacks, spearheaded by UN Watch, a notorious NGO that avoids the message while mounting a furious attack on the messenger, seeking to blacken my reputation by writing letters of personal denunciation to a variety of prominent persons, who took such tactics far more seriously than they deserved.”
Schabas agreed with Falk, saying that “UN Watch and its friends howled about the composition” of his commission, and that “charges of bias against me were nothing more than a witch-hunt, something reminiscent of McCarthyism.”
In the interview, Schabas sought to downplay his prior prejudicial statements — which include his declaration that the one person he most wants to see in the dock of the international criminal court is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — and his failure to disclose his paid legal work for the PLO.
If Israeli judges were able to judge Adolph Eichmann despite their “strong views” on Nazi war criminals, argued Schabas, he too could judge the Jewish state.
 
Schabas and Falk Listed as Speakers at Anti-Israel Conference in UK’s Southampton U. — Then Schabas’ Name Removed 
An upcoming April conference at the UK’s University of Southampton that seeks to challenge the “legitimacy in international law of the Jewish state of Israel,” accusing it of “Apartheid,” listed former UN officials Richard Falk and William Schabas among their speakers.
A newer version of the program, however, which follows an international outcry, suddenly has Schabas’ name removed.
Snapshots of the program follow below.

The post UN Gaza Probe Seeks Delay to June After Schabas Quits Over Paid Legal Work for the PLO appeared first on UN Watch.

GENEVA, Dec. 8 – For the third time in three months, former UN official Richard Falk has lashed out at UN Watch, this time in an interview that purports to be in the voice of his wife, new UN expert on hunger Hilal Elver Falk, but which appears to have been written by him.

Asked by the interviewer from the Moon Magazine why the U.S. condemned her appointment, Elver, who has famously accused Israel of “water apartheid”, misleadingly answered by insisting that the U.S. did not vote against her appointment, which is true — largely because the appointment of numerous experts was a package deal — but non-responsive to the question asked.

Elver claims that “the U.S. government did not oppose my appointment.” In fact, the U.S. strongly condemned her appointment, following a UN Watch letter to Ambassador Samantha Power documenting Elver’s utter failure to meet the basic requirements of the position. The U.S. slammed Falk’s wife for her “lack of relevant experience,” questioned “her readiness for this assignment,” and pointed to her “biased and inflammatory views” which “run counter to the dispassionate professionalism central to the work of a Special Rapporteur.” Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird sent a letter to the UN condemning Elver’s “abysmal judgment.”

Elver omitted all of this, and instead accused UN Watch of mounting a “politically motivated publicity campaign” against her.

“A small Geneva NGO called UN Watch came out against my appointment, not because of my qualifications, but because I am married to Richard Falk, said Elver. “This NGO consistently and irresponsibly accused my husband of being anti-Semitic, and I was presumed guilty merely as a result of being his wife. I was also falsely alleged to be collaborating with his writings on the Palestine-Israel conflict.”

The truth is that Elver’s original application form was riddled with self-disqualifying answers, non-sequiturs, and spelling mistakes. Her English, as one can also see on YouTube, is very poor and at times incoherent. Curiously, however, while the interviewer claims to have “talked” to Elver, her English is flawless, and also includes all of her husband’s usual manipulative arguments.

Falk: ‘I Lost Academic Appointment Because of UN Watch”

Richard Falk, the infamous 9/11 Truther and author of the New York Times 1979 op-ed “Trusting Khomeini,” has not received a moment of UN Watch attention once his 6-year term as the UNHRC’s special investigator of “Israel’s violations of the bases and principles of international law” expired, at long last, in June of this year.

Yet Falk continues to evince a profound bitterness to UN Watch, the only human rights group at the United Nations that dared to expose his toxic mix of pro-Hamas appeasement, anti-Western invective, support for 9/11 conspiracy theorists and demonization of Israel.

Asked in an October interview about obstacles to his UN work, Falk said: “I was very much attacked in a kind of defamatory way by UN Watch and other very extreme Zionist organizations, which tried — wherever I went, anywhere in the world, they would try to prevent me from speaking and mounted a kind of defamatory campaign, called me an anti-Semite, a leading anti-Semite.”

In truth, UN Watch allies in condemning Falk’s poison included UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the U.S., the UK, Canada — and the Palestinian Authority, which famously tried to fire him. For a glimpse into Falk’s numerous statements supporting terrorism against America, the West and Israel, click here.

Here is Falk’s tirade against UN Watch, from his September essay on the alleged misuses of anti-Semitism:

I do not claim neutrality on these issues. During the past six years, while serving as UN Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine on behalf of the Human Rights Council, I have been the continuous target of a sustained defamation campaign spearheaded by a Zionist-oriented NGO, UN Watch, based in Geneva. I was repeatedly accused of anti-Semitism, and my views on other issues were likewise distorted to create an impression of bizarre judgment. I was called a supporter of terrorism, a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, and the like…

 Because of the atmosphere in North America where demonstrating 100%+ support for Israel has become an indispensable ingredient of political credibility, these defamatory attacks were accepted as valid by several public officials who never bothered to check with me or examine my actual views on such controversial topics.

As a result I was attacked by such luminaries as the UN Secretary General, two U.S. ambassadors to the UN (Susan Rice, Samantha Powers), Foreign Minister of Canada, among others, and a favorite target for Fox TV and the Murdock [sic] media empire.

Additionally, efforts were made to have my lectures cancelled at universities in various places around the world (including McGill and McMaster in Canada, AUB in Beirut, ANU, Melbourne, and Sydney in Australia, Norfolk in the UK, and Princeton, University of Texas, University of Iowa and others in the USA) These universities were warned that unless my campus appearance was cancelled, funding would suffer.

On at least one occasion I was informed that a previous offer of a visiting appointment at an overseas university, Kings College London, was reduced from year-to-year to a single year due to my alleged anti-Semitism.

Even my wife was defamed by such Zionist zealots who tried to defeat her candidacy in the UN Human Rights Council in 2014 to become Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food. She was accused of writing inflammatory anti-Israeli tracts in collaboration with me, a complete lie as we had never collaborated on this subject-matter, and it was further alleged that she shared my anti-Semitic views, which is a double lie.

The post Ex-UN investigator Richard Falk and his wife attack UN Watch appeared first on UN Watch.

I do not claim neutrality on these issues. During the past six years, while serving as UN Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine on behalf of the Human Rights Council, I have been the continuous target of a sustained defamation campaign spearheaded by a Zionist-oriented NGO, UN Watch, based in Geneva. I was repeatedly accused of anti-Semitism, and my views on other issues were likewise distorted to create an impression of bizarre judgment. I was called a supporter of terrorism, a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, and the like…
 Because of the atmosphere in North America where demonstrating 100%+ support for Israel has become an indispensable ingredient of political credibility, these defamatory attacks were accepted as valid by several public officials who never bothered to check with me or examine my actual views on such controversial topics.
As a result I was attacked by such luminaries as the UN Secretary General, two U.S. ambassadors to the UN (Susan Rice, Samantha Powers), Foreign Minister of Canada, among others, and a favorite target for Fox TV and the Murdock [sic] media empire.
Additionally, efforts were made to have my lectures cancelled at universities in various places around the world (including McGill and McMaster in Canada, AUB in Beirut, ANU, Melbourne, and Sydney in Australia, Norfolk in the UK, and Princeton, University of Texas, University of Iowa and others in the USA) These universities were warned that unless my campus appearance was cancelled, funding would suffer.
On at least one occasion I was informed that a previous offer of a visiting appointment at an overseas university, Kings College London, was reduced from year-to-year to a single year due to my alleged anti-Semitism.
Even my wife was defamed by such Zionist zealots who tried to defeat her candidacy in the UN Human Rights Council in 2014 to become Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food. She was accused of writing inflammatory anti-Israeli tracts in collaboration with me, a complete lie as we had never collaborated on this subject-matter, and it was further alleged that she shared my anti-Semitic views, which is a double lie.

On the writings of his wife Hilal Elver Falk concerning “Israel’s Water Apartheid,” click here.

The post Ex-UN investigator Richard Falk lashes out at UN Watch for appeared first on UN Watch.