Israel Bars UN Official for Comparing Israel to Nazis
Zionism Falling Apart | 10.04.2008 02:25 | Anti-militarism | World
This is simply a convenient excuse for Israel to bar another Observer, as they know that what they are engaged in is both illegal and immoral.
There should be no special exception for Israel when it comes to the human rights of Palestinians, period, end of discussion.
What Professor Falk is doing is merely stating the obvious, and that's what has Israeli officials cringing and sputtering.
And if Israel bars Falk from assuming his Human Rights Investigator post, Israel should be thrown out of the UN.
There should be no special exception for Israel when it comes to the human rights of Palestinians, period, end of discussion.
What Professor Falk is doing is merely stating the obvious, and that's what has Israeli officials cringing and sputtering.
And if Israel bars Falk from assuming his Human Rights Investigator post, Israel should be thrown out of the UN.
Israel to deny UN official entry for comparing Israel to Nazis
By The Associated Press
The Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that it will not allow the United Nations official appointed to investigate Israeli-Palestinian human rights to enter the country, after he stood by comments comparing Israelis to Nazis.
Richard Falk is scheduled to take up his post with the UN Human Rights Council in May, but the Foreign Ministry said it will deny Falk a visa to enter Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, at least until a September meeting of the council.
At that meeting, Israel intends to ask the council to expand the envoy's mission to include investigating Palestinian human rights abuses against Israelis. The mandate currently allows him to monitor only human rights violations by Israel in the Palestinian territories.
Israel will also express its displeasure with the council's choice of Falk as investigator. "If he already believes Israel is like the Nazis, how fair will he be?" said a Foreign Ministry spokesman.
Israel has objected for years to what it perceives as anti-Israel bias by many UN bodies.
(But that's just because they think their conduct should somehow be beyond reproach ...)
According to a Tuesday posting on the British Broadcasting Corporation's Web site, Falk defended statements he made last summer equating Israel's treatment of Palestinians with Nazi treatment of Jews during the Holocaust. He told BBC News that Israel has been unfairly shielded from international criticism.
Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis during World War II in an effort to liquidate all of Europe's Jews. The Foreign Ministry spokesperson called Falk's comments "unacceptable and, in fact, a little strange."
"To compare Israel to the Nazis is not just a total falsehood, it's also a personal insult to everybody," he said, adding that the choice of Falk is indicative of the Human Rights Council's negative attitude toward Israel. "Of all the people to be able to appoint, to find somebody who compares Israel to the Nazis is very bizarre and outrageous," he said.
(Would someone who compares it to Apartheid S. Africa be more suitable?)
The council's previous investigator, John Dugard from South Africa, compared Israeli treatment of Palestinians to apartheid, the discriminatory policy of the previous white regime in South Africa toward blacks.
Falk, a professor emeritus at Princeton University, could not be reached for comment.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/972974.html
Israel bars UN envoy after 'holocaust' claim
By Carolynne Wheeler in Jerusalem
Last Updated: 2:10am BST 09/04/2008
Israel has said it will refuse a visa for the new United Nations human rights envoy to the Palestinians after he said it was responsible for a “Holocaust in the making” in Gaza.
Richard Falk, a Jewish-American law professor, is to assume the UN post of special rapporteur in June.
But the Israeli government is furious as he compared it last year to Nazi Germany and has refused to retract his comments since his appointment.
A spokesman for Israel’s foreign ministry also accused his employers of bias.
Israeli officials want the envoy to evaluate Palestinian human rights violations, including rockets fired on Israeli civilians, alongside any Israeli transgressions.
(But this is an entirely different situation, as the rockets are a direct response to Israel's oppression of the Palestinians, as Israel's own defense staff has attested.)
The ministry has said that Mr Falk will not be issued a visa to enter the country until at least September, when the UN is to re-evaluate his mandate.
In an essay written last year, Mr Falk said that Israel was creating a “Holocaust in the making” for its heavy economic sanctions (Collective Punishment) on Hamas-controlled Gaza.
Arye Mekel, the foreign ministry spokesman, said: “We take it personally. I myself, my grandparents were murdered by the Nazis. How can I react to these comments? They’re very painful.
(Then act against the Extremists in the Knesset, and try to get these policies changed.)
“This is a very outrageous statement to us and a personal insult to every Israeli. How could he then come up with an objective conclusion about what Israel does or doesn’t do in Gaza?”
Mr Falk has said he stands by his comments, despite the outcry in Israel.
He said he did not intend the Nazi comparison to be taken literally but wanted to shock the world into action, and said that the Jewish people’s own tragic history has helped Israel evade criticism.
“If this kind of situation had existed for instance in the manner in which China was dealing with Tibet or the Sudanese government was dealing with Darfur, I think there would be no reluctance to make that comparison,” Mr Falk told the BBC.
In the essay, “Slouching toward a Palestinian Holocaust”, he called on foreign governments to intervene in Gaza.
“The recent developments in Gaza are especially disturbing because they express so vividly a deliberate intention on the part of Israel and its allies to subject an entire human community to life-endangering conditions of utmost cruelty,” Mr Falk wrote, adding it was not “an irresponsible overstatement” to associate the Gaza situation with the Holocaust.
The outgoing rapporteur, John Dugard, a South African law professor, was criticised for concluding that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories bore resemblance to apartheid-era South Africa, citing policies including zones closed to Palestinians, house demolitions and preferential treatment for Israeli cars on roads on the West Bank.
He also said that firing rockets into Israel was a war crime, though his mandate did not specifically include reporting such violations.
Mr Mekel said that Israeli officials refused to meet Mr Dugard in protest against this limited mandate, though he was never refused entry.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/08/wisrael108.xml
UN Expert Stands By Comments Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/04/395989.html
By The Associated Press
The Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that it will not allow the United Nations official appointed to investigate Israeli-Palestinian human rights to enter the country, after he stood by comments comparing Israelis to Nazis.
Richard Falk is scheduled to take up his post with the UN Human Rights Council in May, but the Foreign Ministry said it will deny Falk a visa to enter Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, at least until a September meeting of the council.
At that meeting, Israel intends to ask the council to expand the envoy's mission to include investigating Palestinian human rights abuses against Israelis. The mandate currently allows him to monitor only human rights violations by Israel in the Palestinian territories.
Israel will also express its displeasure with the council's choice of Falk as investigator. "If he already believes Israel is like the Nazis, how fair will he be?" said a Foreign Ministry spokesman.
Israel has objected for years to what it perceives as anti-Israel bias by many UN bodies.
(But that's just because they think their conduct should somehow be beyond reproach ...)
According to a Tuesday posting on the British Broadcasting Corporation's Web site, Falk defended statements he made last summer equating Israel's treatment of Palestinians with Nazi treatment of Jews during the Holocaust. He told BBC News that Israel has been unfairly shielded from international criticism.
Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis during World War II in an effort to liquidate all of Europe's Jews. The Foreign Ministry spokesperson called Falk's comments "unacceptable and, in fact, a little strange."
"To compare Israel to the Nazis is not just a total falsehood, it's also a personal insult to everybody," he said, adding that the choice of Falk is indicative of the Human Rights Council's negative attitude toward Israel. "Of all the people to be able to appoint, to find somebody who compares Israel to the Nazis is very bizarre and outrageous," he said.
(Would someone who compares it to Apartheid S. Africa be more suitable?)
The council's previous investigator, John Dugard from South Africa, compared Israeli treatment of Palestinians to apartheid, the discriminatory policy of the previous white regime in South Africa toward blacks.
Falk, a professor emeritus at Princeton University, could not be reached for comment.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/972974.html Israel bars UN envoy after 'holocaust' claim
By Carolynne Wheeler in Jerusalem
Last Updated: 2:10am BST 09/04/2008
Israel has said it will refuse a visa for the new United Nations human rights envoy to the Palestinians after he said it was responsible for a “Holocaust in the making” in Gaza.
Richard Falk, a Jewish-American law professor, is to assume the UN post of special rapporteur in June.
But the Israeli government is furious as he compared it last year to Nazi Germany and has refused to retract his comments since his appointment.
A spokesman for Israel’s foreign ministry also accused his employers of bias.
Israeli officials want the envoy to evaluate Palestinian human rights violations, including rockets fired on Israeli civilians, alongside any Israeli transgressions.
(But this is an entirely different situation, as the rockets are a direct response to Israel's oppression of the Palestinians, as Israel's own defense staff has attested.)
The ministry has said that Mr Falk will not be issued a visa to enter the country until at least September, when the UN is to re-evaluate his mandate.
In an essay written last year, Mr Falk said that Israel was creating a “Holocaust in the making” for its heavy economic sanctions (Collective Punishment) on Hamas-controlled Gaza.
Arye Mekel, the foreign ministry spokesman, said: “We take it personally. I myself, my grandparents were murdered by the Nazis. How can I react to these comments? They’re very painful.
(Then act against the Extremists in the Knesset, and try to get these policies changed.)
“This is a very outrageous statement to us and a personal insult to every Israeli. How could he then come up with an objective conclusion about what Israel does or doesn’t do in Gaza?”
Mr Falk has said he stands by his comments, despite the outcry in Israel.
He said he did not intend the Nazi comparison to be taken literally but wanted to shock the world into action, and said that the Jewish people’s own tragic history has helped Israel evade criticism.
“If this kind of situation had existed for instance in the manner in which China was dealing with Tibet or the Sudanese government was dealing with Darfur, I think there would be no reluctance to make that comparison,” Mr Falk told the BBC.
In the essay, “Slouching toward a Palestinian Holocaust”, he called on foreign governments to intervene in Gaza.
“The recent developments in Gaza are especially disturbing because they express so vividly a deliberate intention on the part of Israel and its allies to subject an entire human community to life-endangering conditions of utmost cruelty,” Mr Falk wrote, adding it was not “an irresponsible overstatement” to associate the Gaza situation with the Holocaust.
The outgoing rapporteur, John Dugard, a South African law professor, was criticised for concluding that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories bore resemblance to apartheid-era South Africa, citing policies including zones closed to Palestinians, house demolitions and preferential treatment for Israeli cars on roads on the West Bank.
He also said that firing rockets into Israel was a war crime, though his mandate did not specifically include reporting such violations.
Mr Mekel said that Israeli officials refused to meet Mr Dugard in protest against this limited mandate, though he was never refused entry.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/08/wisrael108.xml UN Expert Stands By Comments Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/04/395989.html
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