Richard Falk apparently believes the Khazar myth

In a talk that former UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Richard Falk, gave last February, he proved yet again that facts are not relevant to him.

He said that the Jewish state should still be destroyed demographically even if a Palestinian state were to be created today because of the "right of return."\

He also said that Palestinians have the "right to resist" and his context made it clear he meant with violence.

If that wasn't bad enough, afterwards he revealed how truly antisemitic he is:

Following Prof. Falk’s formal remarks, a questioner asked if in the case of Israel “apartheid” would be the correct term to apply, since the Jewish population of Israel it itself multi-ethnic and multi-racial, comprising not only Ashkenazic Jews from Northern and Eastern Europe, but Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews from the Mediterranean and Muslim lands, as well as Ethiopian and Indian Jews. Falk responded that Israeli law treats all these Jews the same, entitling them to the same rights and privileges that are denied to Palestinians, such as the sacred “right of return” to Israel by Jews, most of whose ancestors never inhabited Biblical Israel. “The whole rationale of Israel is to be a Jewish state, and they don’t fragment their own identity.”

Falk, by saying that most Jews do not descend from the Jews of the Bible, is apparently a  believer of the discredited and ludicrous Khazar myth - the myth that is so convenient for other antisemites to delegitimize the right of Jews to define themselves as a people.

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ESCWA fallout continues as we can see exactly who the Jew-haters are

If you single out Israel as an apartheid state, the only one in the world with that appellation, you are an antisemite.

After UN ESCWA head Rima Khalaf resigned, she has been praised as "brave" for her stand. Of course, her term was up within two weeks, so there was no bravery involved whatsoever.

Who has praised the report and Rima Khalaf?

Mahmoud Abbas, who says he will give Khalaf the Palestinians'  highest honor. (Maybe a bronzed suicide belt?)

Hanan Ashrawi, whose NGO website has included numerous examples of naked antisemitism.

The Euro-Mediterranian Human Rights Monitor, which has engaged in antisemitic tropes numerous times.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Ben White, hypocritical "pro-Palestinian" activist.

Islamic Jihad.

Ali Abunimah and Electronic Intifada.

Hamas.

The BDS movement.

David Duke.

By the criteria of the report, we can safely declare most nations on the planet to be "apartheid states"  where all people under the regimes are denied equal rights. But only one seems to get that label. And that proves, as well as anything can, that the critics of Israel are not interested in "human rights" but they simply cannot stomach the idea of the Jewish people having any national rights.

Yes, this is a list of antisemites.

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The UNHRC releases another anti-Israel report - but not AS biased as Richard Falk's were

Yesterday, the UN released its latest Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, by Makarim Wibisono (Richard Falks' replacement.)

Wibisono is known to have made anti-Israel statements in the past.

The report is not nearly as over the top as Falk's reports had been, to be sure. It is pretty much a repeat of things said at the UN and by the OCHA-OPT, relying on Palestinian Arab NGOs for some information.

Twice the report quotes the UN's OCHA-OPT as saying that "The information recorded and provided by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) showed that 2,256 Palestinians were killed, of whom 1,563 were civilians, including 538 children." with a small footnote saying "Verification continues." Yet those numbers have not changed since the war, indicating that no one at OCHA-OPT really cares to revisit the false statistics that have been widely quoted worldwide as fact.

Even though many of those same "civilians" were shown to be terrorists by the Meir Amit Center.

But, surprisingly, the report does mention that!

According to OHCHR, some 69 per cent of the Palestinians killed during the hostilities in Gaza were civilians. An Israeli organization compiling its own statistics on Palestinian fatalities has so far found the Palestinian civilian to combatant casualty ratio to be somewhat lower, at 48 per cent*.

*This ratio is based on 54 per cent of verified fatalities. See Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, “Examination of the names of the Palestinians killed in Operation Protective Edge”, 1 December 2014.

That in itself is a marked contrast to the bilious, one sided reports from Richard Falk, who would parrot the most absurd anti-Israel accusations by the most unreliable NGOs without even bothering to find out Israel's side of the story.

This is not to say that the report is unbiased. It is very biased. It doesn't mention Hamas' tunnels once, even though they were the main target of Israeli operations - and they were built under many of the homes that the IDF destroyed, unfortunately killing civilians. In fact, it barely mentions Hamas. It makes false assumptions about international law.

It is not quite sure if Hamas even fired rockets to begin with, saying only that "thousands of indiscriminate rockets were reportedly fired by Palestinian armed groups from Gaza."

The report that supposedly looks at human rights in the territories doesn't mention Hamas' use of human shields, of public executions, of booby-trapping civilian buildings, of placing military targets in medical facilities, or any of the many Hamas actions that directly violated Gaza civilians' human rights and international law.

While the UNHRC remains implacably anti-Israel, and this report shows that, it seems that it has been clearly stung by many of the criticisms that have been leveled against it so it is making some cosmetic changes to soften its reports.

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Richard Falk freaks out on UN Watch in official UN report (updated)

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. It is disappointing that such irresponsible and dishonest attacks have been taken seriously, with no effort to seek the views of the Special Rapporteur or verify the accuracy of the allegations. To set the record straight, the Special Rapporteur proposes that UN Watch be investigated to determine whether it qualifies as an independent organization that operates in accord with its name and stated objectives, and is not indirectly sponsored by the Government of Israel and/or other “pro-Israel” lobbying groups affiliated with the Government, as well as whether its programme of work is of direct relevance to the aims and purposes of the United Nations.1 Even a superficial review of their website confirms their preoccupation with character assassination, and the absence of an organizational agenda that corresponds to its claim to exercise oversight over United Nations activities. Despite its efforts to discredit the Special Rapporteur, UN Watch has never offered substantive criticisms or entered into any serious discussion of the Special Rapporteur's reports. Such defamation of a special rapporteur is detrimental to the independence and substantive intention of any mandate. It diverts attention from the message to the messenger, and shifts public interest away from the need to protect human rights in contexts that have been identified by the Human Rights Council as of particular concern. The Special Rapporteur recommends that this issue be viewed in relation not only to his mandate, but also as a matter of principle relating to ensuring a responsible role for NGOs within the United Nations system. In like manner, it seems important to encourage a greater willingness on the part of senior United Nations officials to defend special rapporteurs subject to such diversionary attacks, or at the least, not to be complicit.

It looks like Falk is feeling the heat for his outrageous statements and he is lashing out. His crazed viewpoints on justifying even the most horrific terror acts are finally seeing the light of day, and Falk can no longer hide his ugliness from the very organization that gives him legitimacy. (Notably, even Human Rights Watch recently expelled Falk from one of its committees because of the embarrassment of being associated with him.)

He is a despicable man and it is nice to see that his world is crashing down around him.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

UPDATE: To give an idea of Falk's sick mentality, in this very report he seems to care as much about the fate of rocket launchers meant to target Israeli civilians as is does about human beings:

[During Pillar of Defense,] on the Gazan side, casualties to police and militants were greatly reduced by avoiding targeted facilities and taking secure shelter, and damage to rocket launchers was reduced by greater mobility and use of underground launching sites. 

While it many be possible Falk was trying to say that Israel's stated aim of destroying the rocket infrastructure failed, it still sure looks as though Falk is praising Hamas for saving part of its weapons aimed at civilians! While this may be consistent with Falk's oft-stated claim that Hamas rockets are simply "resistance," it is hardly consistent with his standing as a human rights expert.

Unless, of course, he considers Israelis to be a little less human.

(h/t Bebe)

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Richard Falk justifies and supports Hamas rockets

I had missed this essay from December by Richard Falk.

It is always interesting to see a special rapporteur of the UN justify targeting Jews - and for a supposed expert on international law to say that the laws themselves are insufficient in allowing the right of Hamas to shoot rockets at Jewish civilians:

There is no doubt that Hamas’s reliance on rockets fired in the direction of Israeli civilian population centers are violations of international humanitarian law, and should be condemned as such, but even this condemnation is not without its problematic aspects. The Goldstone Report did condemn the reliance of these rockets in a typically decontextualized manner, that is, without reference to the unlawfulness of the occupation, including its pronounced reliance on collective punishment in the form of the blockade as well as arbitrary violent incursions, frequent military overflights, and a terrifying regime of subjugation that imparts on Palestinians a sense of total vulnerability and helplessness. The Goldstone Report also was silent as to the nature and extent of a Palestinian right of resistance. Such unconditional condemnations of Hamas as ‘a terrorist organization’ are unreasonably one-sided to the extent that Palestinian moral, political, and legal rights of resistance are ignored and Israel’s unlawful policies are not considered. This issue also reveals a serious deficiency in international humanitarian law, especially, as here, in the context of a prolonged occupation that includes many violations of the most fundamental and inalienable rights of an occupied people. The prerogatives of states are upheld, while those of peoples are overlooked or treated as non-existent.

It is also relevant to take note of the absence of alternative means available to the Palestinians to uphold their rights under international law and to challenge the abuses embedded in Israeli occupation policies. Israel with its drones, Apache helicopters, F-16 fighter aircraft, Iron Dome, and so forth enjoys the luxury of choosing its targets at will, but Palestinians have no such option. For them it is either using the primitive and indiscriminate weaponry at their disposal or essentially giving in to an intolerable status quo. To repeat, this does not make Hamas rockets lawful, but does it make such reliance wrong, given the overall context of violence that includes absolute impunity for Israeli violations of international criminal law? What are we to do with international law when it is invoked only to control the behavior of the weaker party?

It gives perspective to imagine the situation being reversed as it was during the Nazi occupation of France or the Netherlands during World War II. Resistance fighters were uniformly perceived in the liberal West as unconditional heroes, and no critical attention was given as to whether the tactics used unduly imperiled innocent civilian lives. Those who lost their lives in such a resistance were honored as martyrs. Mashaal and other Hamas leaders have made similar arguments on several occasions, in effect asking what Palestinians are supposed to do in the exercise of resistance given their circumstances, which have persisted for so long, given the failures of traditional diplomacy and the UN to secure their rights under international law.

Falk is admitting that Hamas terror rockets aimed at Israeli civilians are unlawful - but he cannot say that they are wrong! You see, Hamas is just like the French and Dutch resistance fighters!

The major argument Falk advances is that Khaled Meshal's statements in Arabic flatly stating his desire to destroy Israel should also be "contextualized" and his ambiguous statements to the Western media being misinterpreted as showing flexibility should be what we believe.

Oh, and he is again not above lying with statistics:

Although not the whole story, the one-sided ratio of deaths as between Israel and Palestine is a good first approximation of comparative responsibility over the period of Hamas ascendancy in Gaza, and it is striking. For instance, between the ceasefire in 2009 and the Israeli attack in November 2012, 271 Palestinians were killed and not a single Israeli. [B’Teselm [sic] report]

Actually, B'tzelem counts 4 Israeli fatalities from Gaza in that time period.

But moreover, looking at the details of B'Tselem's statistics for that time period, we see that the vast majority of Gazans killed were terrorists! 200 of them were either actively engaged in hostilities against Israel (165) or targeted as leaders of terror groups (35)! Of the remainder, a large percentage were either smugglers in tunnels killed during air raids, Arabs trying to sneak into Israel or found directly next to the perimeter fence, or rock-throwing protesters. (Also, 45 Gazans killed by other Gazans, and 14 executed by Hamas.)

Then again, why should anyone be surprised when someone who clearly supports terrorism as legitimate "resistance" is also a liar?

(h/t Missing Peace)

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A reminder that Robert Serry and Richard Falk are idiots

During the past week I noted that both Robert Serry, the UN's envoy to the Middle East, and Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur, claimed that Hamas was ready to recognize Israel after a Palestinian Arab state was established.

They follow in the footsteps of Ethan Bronner of the NYT, Karl Vick of Time magazine, and a host of so-called Middle East "experts" who refuse to believe Hamas' leaders clear statements they speak in Arabic, and instead overlay their own biases and hopes on top of purposefully ambiguous statements made in English - specifically to fool the West.

Here are three clear statements from Hamas, today, that they have never - and never will - compromise on the existence of Israel:

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh confirmed his support for any political achievement earned by the Palestinian people "on the road to grab the state." Haniyeh stressed in a statement received by "Palestine Today" on Thursday evening, 29/11/2012, that any political achievement must be "on the basis of lack of recognition of the occupier or compromise of our strategy and our principles, first and foremost the right of return."

Haniyeh's words correspond with what Hamas Political Bureau head Khaled Meshaal said previously, as he stressed the "need to be a move in the context of a vision and a national strategy keeps the principles and national rights, and based on the strength of our Palestinian people, especially the resistance."

Member of the political bureau of Hamas Ezzat Rishq earlier said that [the PLO should] go to the United Nations to get the label of observer State, but without giving up or compromising any inch of Palestinian land from the sea to the river. Rishq said: "We support any achievement won by our people and our Palestinian national cause in all forums so as to maintain the rights of our people."

It is really hard to misinterpret such clear statements. Yet clueless Westerners do it every single day. (And the people interviewing them are equally clueless to challenge them when they spew their nonsense.)

It's not like it is news that Palestinian Arabs talk deceptively in English and tell the truth in Arabic. Arafat did it for decades. But some people refuse to believe it - because they would prefer to bet Israel's existence on Arab lies.

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Richard Falk calls rockets towards Jerusalem "survival cries"

Richard Falk outdoes himself again with his embrace of terrorists and seething hatred for the Jewish state.

In a November 18th article he wrote for - where else? - Al Jazeera, Falk liberally sprinkles lies on top of a serving of half-truths to come up with conclusions that would be universally considered the ranting of a lunatic if the object of his vitriol would be anything besides Israel.

It is too tedious to fisk completely - I've done that many times, and life is way too short to spend on someone as already thoroughly discredited as Falk - but for those late to the game of exposing this United Nations Special Rapporteur, here are some quickies:

Referring to Israel's attack on Ahmad Jaabari, Falk writes:

Such an extra-judicial killing...remains an unlawful tactic of conflict, denying adversary political leaders separated from combat any opportunity to defend themselves against accusations...

Yes, Falk is saying that the leader of Hamas' terror wing, the Al Qassam brigades, is a "political leader." Falk knows this and lies.

Gaza, which is one of the most crowded and impoverished communities on the planet...

People living in Egypt, only a few miles away, are far more impoverished. As are large swaths of Africa, Asia, and South America. Gazans have malls, supermarkets, luxury hotels, plenty of food, tons of goods, nice cars and more. Not to mention that the "refugees" get free medical care and education. Falk knows this and lies.

Israeli removal of troops and settlements [in 2005] was little more than a mere redeployment to the borders of Gaza, with absolute control over what goes in and what leaves...

Two words: Egypt and tunnels. Falk knows this and lies.

From an international law point of view, Israel's purported "disengagement" from Gaza didn't end its responsibility as an Occupying Power under the Geneva Conventions...

Wrong. Very wrong. Falk knows this, and lies.

600,000 armed settlers

Really? every man, woman and child in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem is armed? Falk knows this is a lie, and lies anyway.

The top Hamas leaders have made it abundantly clear over and over again that they are open to permanent peace with Israel if there is a total withdrawal to the 1967 borders and the arrangement is supported by a referendum of all Palestinians living under occupation.

Hamas has never, not once, even implied a permanent peace with Israel. Ever. And its terms for a truce include the destruction of Israel by allowing millions of fake "refugees" to flood it and become citizens.

Falk knows this, and lies.

But even if you can excuse a UN representative for his constant lies, his anti-semitism, his embrace of Hamas terrorists - just check out how he describes medium range Iranian rockets, with 100 kg. of explosives, being fired at population centers of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem:

It is truly alarming that now even the holiest of cities, Jerusalem, is threatened with attacks, but the continuation of oppressive conditions for the people of Gaza, inevitably leads to increasing levels of frustration, in effect, cries of help that world has ignored at its peril for decades. These are survival screams! To realise this is not to exaggerate!

Yes. Shooting rockets at women and children aren't mere war crimes, but they should be understood to be survival screams. 

What a reprehensible excuse for a human being Richard Falk is.

He fits right in to the UN.

(h/t Real Jerusalem Streets)

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