U.N. official has long history of anti-Israel bias

Richard Falk

TEL AVIV, Israel – A United Nations official accusing Israel of committing a “war crime
of the greatest magnitude” in Gaza has a long history of anti-Israel bias
and of siding with the Hamas terrorist organization.

Richard Falk, the U.N. special investigator on human rights in the Palestinian
territories, also has been part of investigations that
determined Palestinian suicide bombings were a valid method of “struggle,” vocally
supported the Islamic revolution in Iran and even has supported charges
claiming the U.S. government was involved in plotting the 9/11 attacks.

Yesterday, Falk penned a report to the U.N. charging Israel’s 22-day offensive
against Hamas in densely populated Gaza appeared to have constituted a war
crime of the “greatest magnitude.”

In an annual report to the United Nations Human Rights Council, he wrote
the Geneva Conventions required warring forces to distinguish between
military targets and surrounding civilians.

“If it is not possible to do so, then launching the attacks is inherently
unlawful and would seem to constitute a war crime of the greatest magnitude
under international law,” he reported.

“On the basis of the preliminary evidence available, there is reason to
reach this conclusion,” he wrote.

Falk called for a group of independent experts to probe possible war crimes
committed by both Israeli forces and Hamas. He further suggested the U.N.
Security Council establish an ad hoc criminal tribunal to establish accountability
for war crimes in Gaza.

A Google News search yesterday found more than 1,000 English-language news items
reporting on Falk’s claims. A brief perusal through some of the coverage –
including articles released by the Associated Press, Reuters and ABC News –
found Falk’s statements were reported in a straight-forward manner without
providing crucial background into the U.N. employee’s alleged longstanding
anti-Israel bias.

Indeed, Falk’s history of criticizing Israel resulted in December in the Jewish state detaining and then booting him upon his
arrival at the country’s international airport – purportedly to visit the
Palestinian territories as part of a human rights investigation. Israel had warned
Falk before his flight that he would not be permitted to enter the country.

Falk in December angered Israel when he claimed the country’s policies
regarding the Palestinians amount to a “crime against humanity.”

It was Dec. 10 when he called on the U.N. to make an “urgent effort” to “implement
the agreed norm of a responsibility to protect a civilian population (in the
Palestinian territories) being collectively punished by policies that amount
to a crime against humanity.”

He was referring to the Gaza Strip, which Hamas violently seized in the
summer of 2007. Still, Israel provides Gaza with the vast majority of its
electricity, allows shipments of humanitarian supplies and even fuels the
territory’s economy with monthly convoys of Israeli shekels.

Upon Falk’s appointment to the Human Rights Council last spring, former U.N.
Ambassador John Bolton commented, “This is exactly why we voted against the
new human rights council.”

“He was picked for a reason, and the reason is not to have an objective
assessment – the objective is to find more ammunition to go after Israel,” said
Bolton, who suggested Falk was chosen because he previously compared Israeli
actions in Gaza to the Nazi treatment of Jews.

In a June 2007 article called “Slouching toward a Palestinian Holocaust,”
Falk indeed compared Israeli military policies to the Nazi Germany record of
collective punishment.

In 2004, Falk wrote the forward to a book, “The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing
Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11,” which attempts to prove
the Bush administration was complicit in the Sept. 11 attacks.

In the preface, Falk argued, “There have been questions raised here and there
and allegations of official complicity made almost from the day of the
attacks, especially in Europe, but no one until Griffin (the book’s author) has
had the patience, the fortitude, the courage and the intelligence to put the
pieces together in a single coherent account.”

On Feb. 16, 1979, two weeks after the Iranian revolution brought back
religious radical leader Ayatollah Khomeini to power, Falk wrote an op-ed for the
New York Times entitled “Trusting Khomeini” in which he criticized U.S.
officials who warned Khomeini was a religious fanatic and anti-Semitic.

“The depiction of [Khomeini] as fanatical, reactionary and the bearer of
crude prejudices seems certainly and happily false,” Falk wrote.

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