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March 31, 2008

The Campaign to Equate Israel with the Nazis: Enter Richard Falk, UN Special Investigator

richard falk.jpg Veteran anti-Israel activist Richard Falk has been named by the UN Human Rights Council as Special Investigator of Israeli Actions, replacing veteran anti-Israel rapporteur John Dugard. Falk has equated Israel with the Nazis, stating, "Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not." He is also an apologist for Hamas, writing in the same piece where he accused Israel of "genocidal potential" towards the Palestinians, that

Hamas was castigated as a terrorist organization that had not renounced violence against Israel and had refused to recognize the Jewish state as a legitimate political entity. In fact, the behavior and outlook of Hamas is quite different.

The shameless Falk recently plugged the Palestinian propaganda film "Occupation 101," in which he was prominently featured, asserting,

What I was particularly struck by was that there was not a false note in the entire film.

He apparently missed his own wildly inaccurate statements including the false claim that Israel "receives as much foreign economic assistance as all the countries combined in the world" from the US. In truth, as CAMERA documented in its review of the film, "Occupation 101" is a compendium of falsehoods and canards that incite hatred of Israel and Jews in general.

With his long record of gross misjudgement, the professor will be an ideal choice for the committee which spends nearly all its time condemning Israel while ignoring massive human rights violations in places like Sudan and Tibet. In 1979, he published a piece in the New York Times titled "Trusting Khomeini," extolling Ayatollah Khomeini, and ridiculing the notion that the Ayatollah was a religious reactionary. On the very day his piece appeared as an op-ed in the New York Times (Feb. 16, 1979), the first batch of officials from the prior Iranian government were sentenced to death by the new Islamist regime.

Falk possesses impeccable bonafides as the rapporteur for the anti-Israel organization. In February 2002, as the Palestinian suicide bombing campaign was approaching its apex, he published an article with the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Research condemning the

asymmetric war being waged by Israel under Sharon's militant leadership against an essentially defenseless Palestinian society.

Falk's appointment may be a signal that the UN Human Rights Commission is kicking into high gear in its campaign to demonize the state of Israel. After all, the next Durban conference is only a year away. The media, thus far, has not given this appointment the attention it deserves.


Posted by SS at March 31, 2008 11:00 AM

Comments

Please check, US report to Congress on foreign aid.

Yes, he mis-spoke when stating Israel receives more aid than all other countries combined, but Israel is by far the recipient of the most US foreign aid, Egypt being second, and these figures do not include all types of foreign aid to Israel (as in forgiven loans)
http://www.usembassy.it/pdf/other/98-916.pdf

Posted by: Kathy at March 31, 2008 06:23 PM

Military assistance makes up a large portion of direct aid provided to Israel. At $3 billion per year, Israel provides the U.S. with a reliable ally in a vital region. Numerous American officials, including Vice President Cheney, have attested to the mutual benefits derived by the sharing of intelligence and tactical knowledge between the US and Israel. Aid to Israel is a bargain compared to the much greater cost to American taxpayers of defending Europe, Japan and South Korea with American troops.

Posted by: steve at April 1, 2008 11:30 AM

Kathy,

Keep in mind that while the figures you cite might not include all types of aid to Israel, they also don't include all types of aid to the rest of the word.

The comment by Steve hints at this -- protecting South Korea with US troops, for example, has extremely significant direct (and indirect) costs not shown in the CRS report you cite.

Another hint is provided by page 19 of the CRS report. The amount of aid for Iraq reconstruction towers above all other US aid, including aid to Israel.

But the essential point isn't that the US gives Israel slightly more foreign aid than it gives Egypt. It's that Falk is such an anti-Israel extremist that he compares that country to the Nazis, and, while he's at it, he blindly echos patently false canards about US aid to Israel.

What does it mean that the UN Human Rights Council chose this man to be the 'judge' of Israel? Clearly, the Human Rights Council hasn't made any amends after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon criticized it for unfairly "picking on Israel."

Posted by: george at April 1, 2008 12:03 PM

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