"[UN special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories Richard] Falk says the unfortunate incident [in which award-winning Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer was tortured by Israeli security officials] "cannot be discounted as an accident or an anomaly involving undisciplined Israeli security personnel."

"The treatment of Mr. Omer seems to have been motivated by Israeli anger over international recognition of his journalism describing the occupation of Gaza, his willingness to repeat his descriptions abroad and his dedication and intention to continue in the professional role of bearing witness to the excesses of the occupation."

[...]

Nadia Hijab, senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Palestine Studies, told IPS: "Richard Falk is absolutely right."

She said other journalists have been killed or injured by Israeli security forces, even though they and their vehicles were clearly marked as "press." ...

Through its actions, said Hijab, Israel was sending a message that no Palestinian, journalist or otherwise, is safe and that even European diplomats are no match for Israel.

"That is a very chilling message to a defenseless people," she added.

Falk also points out that all Palestinians are subject to arbitrary harassment and abuse at borders and military checkpoints, "although the hostility towards journalists seems particularly severe."

In his report, Falk also says that although the incident affected only one individual, it inevitably has "a chilling effect, and appears to be part of a broader pattern of Israeli punitive interference with independent journalistic reporting on the occupation."

"The only possible protection would be for the US and/or Europe to make it very clear to Israel that they do not condone its violations of international law," [Hijab concluded]." [my emph.]

For more on Israel's abuse of journalists, and on the specific case of Mohammed Omer, see my posts here and here.

Mohammed Omer

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 3 (IPS) - A new United Nations report on the human rights situation in Palestinian territories blasts the Israeli government for its heavy-handed treatment of journalists reporting on the military occupation.

The 20-page report, which will go before the 63rd sessions of the General Assembly currently underway, singles out the mistreatment of award-winning Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer who was stripped, interrogated, kicked and beaten up when he returned from Europe to his home town in the occupied territory of Gaza last June.

A stringer for Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency, Omer, 24, was awarded the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism for "displaying courage and ability in covering war zones".

The U.N. report, by Richard Falk, the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, says that Omer was convinced the brutal assault on his person was carried out by personnel from Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency.

The security agents "were fully aware that he had received the Gellhorn Prize while abroad, and were attempting to confiscate the award money, but were frustrated because it has been deposited in a bank account and was unavailable."

When he left Gaza for Europe to pick up his prize, he was assured of the benefit of a Dutch diplomatic escort on his return.

But the escort arrived late at the Allenby Bridge border, where he was interrogated and beaten up and lost consciousness.

According to Omer's testimony, he was forced to strip by an Israeli officer wearing a police uniform. He was pinned down on the floor with a boot on the neck. He says he collapsed during interrogation, and when he came round his eyelids were being forcibly opened. He was then dragged along the floor by his feet by officials of Shin Bet.

Omer was taken by ambulance from the Allenby crossing to the Jericho hospital in Palestinian territory in the West Bank. From there he was transferred to Gaza after a few hours.

A note from the Israeli Government Press Office (GPO) denies Omer's account of physical abuse in Israeli custody. "In contradiction to his claims, at no time was the complainant subjected to either physical or mental violence."

But an ambulance report of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society says: "We note finger signs on the neck and chest." A report from the European Gaza Hospital of the Palestinian National Authority's Ministry of Health includes the following notation following examination of Omer: "Ecchymosis (discolouration caused by bleeding underneath, typically caused by bruising) at upper part of chest wall was found."

Following the assault, international press freedom groups like the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders called for an immediate and public investigation of Omer's treatment.

By private communication, Falk was assured by the Dutch Ambassador in Geneva that the incident is being taken "extremely seriously" and that an explanation is being sought from the government of Israel.

But at the time of the U.N. report, no response had been received to either request for an account and an explanation.

Falk says the unfortunate incident "cannot be discounted as an accident or an anomaly involving undisciplined Israeli security personnel."

"The treatment of Mr. Omer seems to have been motivated by Israeli anger over international recognition of his journalism describing the occupation of Gaza, his willingness to repeat his descriptions abroad and his dedication and intention to continue in the professional role of bearing witness to the excesses of the occupation."

Falk also points out that all Palestinians are subject to arbitrary harassment and abuse at borders and military checkpoints, "although the hostility towards journalists seems particularly severe."

During his time in Europe, Omer had also spoken before European parliamentary audiences, describing the suffering in Gaza caused by the Israeli siege, closures and fuel and food shortages.

"It should be noted," says Falk, "that Mr. Omer was not charged with any offence, nor was he carrying any prohibited materials."

His treatment, as described, appears to constitute a flagrant violation of article 3(1)(a)(c) of the Fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits "outrages on personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment" of persons under military occupation.

Nadia Hijab, senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Palestine Studies, told IPS: "Richard Falk is absolutely right."

She said other journalists have been killed or injured by Israeli security forces, even though they and their vehicles were clearly marked as "press".

But there are several particularly chilling aspects to Israel's assault against Mohammed Omer, she added.

"He had just been on a successful European speaking tour and received a prestigious award, and he was being met by European diplomats on his return home," she noted.

Through its actions, said Hijab, Israel was sending a message that no Palestinian, journalist or otherwise, is safe and that even European diplomats are no match for Israel.

"That is a very chilling message to a defenceless people," she added.

In his report, Falk also says that although the incident affected only one individual, it inevitably has "a chilling effect, and appears to be part of a broader pattern of Israeli punitive interference with independent journalistic reporting on the occupation."

Falk says the United Nations has a "clear responsibility and definite obligation to protect independent journalism, especially in war zones and areas under occupation, as part of its commitment to human rights and international law."

Asked if the United Nations is doing enough to protect reporters covering the occupied territories, Hijab told IPS: "The United Nations is not equipped to protect reporters covering the occupied territories, just as it is not equipped to protect civilians."

"The only possible protection would be for the U.S. and/or Europe to make it very clear to Israel that they do not condone its violations of international law," she added.

“I think [Falk’s beliefs are] fruitcake city, but among many delegations to the U.N. it’s probably the conventional wisdom….It’s just an example of the inmates running the asylum,”– John Bolton

Author: Aaron

Richard Falk, the special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, investigates alleged Israeli violations of human rights law for the U.N.’s Human Rights Council. Falk also believes that the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon were planned by the U.S. government.  Falk told Fox News that he would like to investigate whether or not there were controlled explosions from within the towers.

Unfortunately, this is just another case of a whacko that is in the U.N.  Falk is just an example of the type of people the U.N. hires to investigate human rights violations across the world.  Instead of focusing on the massive amount of violations going on in China, Sudan, Saudi Arabia etc.  The U.N. sends men like Faulk to Israel to gather up human rights violations against the Jews so that the U.N. can blame something else on them.  Then, as if Falk didn’t already believe that he was the center of the world, he began to recommend inquiries as to whether or not 9/11 was an inside job. 

Listen Falk, you’re a nut job and no one cares about your opinions, well I shouldn’t say that because the U.N.  does, wait, that’s the scary part.

Fox News Report

ISRAEL’S POSTURE as a heavily armed victim is preposterous in face of the evidence, of course, but it has been remarkably successful in the mainstream U.S. media, totally successful in Washington, and almost as effective in Europe since the 9/11 attacks, when Ariel Sharon adroitly conflated Israel’s battle to hold down the Palestinian territories with Washington’s “war on terror.” Given the current demonization of Hezbollah and Hamas, it is worth remembering that the first victims of this mischaracterized vendetta were in fact Sharon’s old enemies: Yasser Arafat, Fateh and the Palestinian Authority.

The West seemed not to learn from this experience just how expedient Israel’s definition of terrorism is, and has not challenged this constant expansion of “terrorist” to any opponent of Israeli policies.

However, chutzpah can be a banal form of hubris, and it has its penalties. Although its experience of the last few years may have led Israel’s leaders and diplomats to assume that no one would ever be so rude as to point out the profound difference between their promises and their performance, there are limits. After renewing its commitment to cease settlement expansion as its part of the so-called “road map,” Israel’s explicit announcements of new building in the occupied territories seem to have caused the various partners in the Quartet to take a reality check.

Even U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has appeared a bit miffed with the Israelis. The others, however, have been more explicit and have taken the opportunity to remind Israel about the inherent illegality of the settlements—let alone the breach of its solemn word over expanding them.

It takes time, but occasionally the truth does surface. A British diplomat complained to me that in 2006, when Margaret Becket was foreign secretary, the U.N. mission had been asked to show British disapproval of Israeli tactics during the Lebanon war without actually saying anything outright, for fear of offending Britain’s current equivalent of AIPAC, Labour Friends of Israel, which had increased enormously in power under the Blair premiership.

So it is with relief that one could hear new British Ambassador to the U.N. John Sawer speak some truth against the developing dogma in European capitals and the U.N. that Israel can do no wrong. (One must note that the British, who were at the receiving end of the terrorist activities of the political antecedents of Likud, should have been the last to be suckered by Israel’s recent conversion to “anti-terrorism.”)

At the March monthly Security Council meeting on the Middle East, which in contrast to some previous perfunctory events gave the subject some time, Sawer explicitly said, “Israel should freeze all settlement activity, including the natural growth of existing settlements. The UK considers that Israeli settlement building anywhere in the occupied Palestinian territories is illegal under international law. This includes settlements in both East Jerusalem and the West Bank.”

Admittedly, even under Blair, the British had never explicitly or implicitly repudiated that longstanding position. Nevertheless, let us say, it was not actually restated very often. Sawer’s words were an implicit, and understated, rebuke to the American position on the settlements, which has morphed from admitting their illegality, to finding them “unhelpful” under Clinton, to promising that some of them can be annexed under Bush.

Indeed the ambassador also welcomed the Yemeni attempt at dialogue between Hamas and Fatah, implicitly repudiating the American-Israeli strategy of fomenting conflict between the two. These are small but significant signs that the Brown government is distancing itself from the Blair policy of complete subservience to Israel and the U.S.

Others on the same path of rediscovery of their principles and reality include U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, who started his term broadly accepting an American view of the concept. Confronted with Israeli lack of faith, however, he has become a quick learner. Exasperated U.N. officials, notably in UNRWA have had to deal with the Israeli actions. When UNRWA states that “Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and—some would say—encouragement of the international community,” the secretary-general has no option but to listen, and be deeply concerned.

B. Lynn Pascoe, his (American) under secretary-general for political affairs, also added a stark statistic—which, without comment, objectively contradicted Israeli claims to unique victimhood. “In total,” he told the Council, “124 Palestinians, including 36 children, had been killed and 359 injured in Israeli operations. Thirteen Israelis had been killed by Palestinian militants, including four children, and 55 injured.”

While his report condemned Hamas rocket attacks, it continued with its indictment of the effects of the occupation, referring to the “580 Israel Defense Forces-imposed obstacles” blocking roads in the West Bank, and that the “levels of restriction had steadily increased each year since 2005, in both quantity and character, and were at the root of the Palestinian economic decline.”

Added Pasco: “Israeli settlement activity had continued in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, during the reporting period. Tenders and construction permits for hundreds of housing units had been announced this month. Construction continued on many settlements and related infrastructure, such as roads for settler use. The Israeli government had stated publicly that settlement expansion in East Jerusalem would continue.”

He also reiterated that “all settlement activity in East Jerusalem or elsewhere in the West Bank” is against international law, and pointed out Israel’s failure to meet its commitments under the road map, and its continuing construction of the wall despite the World Court decision.

Pasco even had the temerity to report that Israel had violated Lebanese air space no less than 222 times in the previous week, which constituted a “serious breach of Lebanese sovereignty and the Blue Line, and undermined the credibility of Lebanese national institutions and UNIFIL.”

Ban’s conclusion to the Security Council laid out that “Peace would be achieved within the agreed framework: an end to the occupation that had begun in 1967, based on the foundations of the Madrid Conference; the principle of land for peace; Security Council resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), 1397 (2002) and 1515 (2003); and the Arab Peace Initiative. That framework would lead to an end of conflict, the creation of a Palestinian State living side by side in peace and security with Israel, and a comprehensive regional peace.”

That road map is very different from the obscuration of the official agreement and Israel’s unilaterally declared conditions on it. Indeed, instead of fostering Palestinian acquiescence and a PA signature ripping up international law and U.N. resolutions, Ban’s “agreed framework” explicitly restates them and implies that apart from minor territorial adjustments, any solution must be based on the pre-1967 boundaries. Since Washington has constantly tried to obscure and downgrade those decisions, Ban has, in his own quiet way, made considerable progress by restating them.

Ban also will have to deal with the continuing campaign against the new U.N. Human Rights Council. Israel and its supporters are even more infuriated than they were before with the appointment of Professor Richard Falk, a professor of international law at Princeton, as the Council’s special investigator of Israeli behavior in the territories.

Falk replaces South African John Dugard, a veteran anti-apartheid activist whose acuity in comparing apartheid South Africa with Israel in the territories really upset Israeli supporters, from whom the truth traditionally raises the loudest cries. While Dugard had the support of his government, however, Falk is unlikely to get Washington behind him.

An outspoken critic of Israeli behavior, the minor details of being American and Jewish did not protect Falk from furious objections from Yitzhak Levanon, the Israeli ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva. “Someone who has publicly and repeatedly stated such views cannot possibly be considered independent, impartial or objective.” he charged. Of course Israel and its supporters would not really be satisfied with anyone but Alan Dershowitz, who has yet to find an Israeli action he cannot support.

Ian Williams, a free-lance journalist based at the United Nations, is working on a book about U.N.-Haters in the U.S., and has a blog at <www.deadlinepundit.blogspot.com>. His last book was Rum: A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776.

According to an Israeli government website called Israelfestival.com, the festival included "non-stop entertainment, [a] fashion show, a variety of ethnic food for sale, Israeli folk dancing, arts and
crafts, Israeli and Jewish cultural and heritage pavilions and art exhibits".

The centrepiece ceremony takes place in West Jerusalem and be attended by Israel's political and military leaders as well as foreign dignitaries. Among those expected are US President George W Bush,
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Israeli media and non-governmental organisations have already begun celebrations in earnest. For example, Israeli television has begun airing a new series called Shishim (meaning "60"), which looks back at the six decades since Israel was created in May 1948. The series, which began 31 March, is divided into six episodes, each devoted to one of the decades following the founding of the state.

Israel hopes that the high-pitched celebrations will serve as an opportunity to promote Israel and enhance its questionable standing abroad. "It is an opportunity to celebrate our achievements, our
successes, our national being," boasted Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who was not yet born in 1948.

From the Zionist viewpoint, Israel is a story of success. Today, Israel is a political and military force to be reckoned with, even if its power is based on the patronage of foreign entities. A country of
no more than seven million people, including nearly 1.5 million non-Jews (mainly Palestinians), Israel more or less directs the politics and policies of world's only superpower, the United States, thanks mainly to powerful Jewish lobbies in Washington.

The power of the Jewish lobby largely explains how massive American financial and military support is to Israel, which is measured in hundreds of billions of dollars. Were it not for this nearly unlimited
financial, economic, technological, political and military backing, Israel would never have been able to survive, especially given its predator tactics.

Israel, which has been mounting a vitriolic incitement campaign against Iran for its acquisition of nuclear technology, is a nuclear power on par with other established nuclear powers, and its military
supremacy -- at least until summer of 2006 -- has covered the vast bulk of the Middle East from Turkey to Iran and from North Africa to east and central Africa.

Economically, Israel is also a regional economic superpower, with a GNP bordering on $0.5 trillion. In fact, Israel is among a few pioneering states in the field of electronics and the development of
new generations of medicine, with Israeli pharmaceutical firms' share of the world market reaching billions of dollars.

Notwithstanding all its success and achievements, Israel remains a state based on racism, apartheid and criminality against the Palestinian people whose homeland it seized and whom it is trying to
obliterate to this day. To be sure, Israel has failed. Palestinians remain, both as a human entity and as a national entity.

Israel, in order to achieve its goals, always sought to acquire, by hook or by crook, as much Palestinian land as possible while taking in as few Palestinian people as possible. The policies and tactics employed by Israel to achieve this goal are both blunt and insidious and amount to ethnic cleansing and the international crime of genocide. Israel has institutionalised racism, bulldozed hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages, shamelessly confiscated Palestinian land and property, including private homes, and recently built the so-called "Separation Wall" in the West Bank, aimed first and foremost at annexing to Israel as much Palestinian land as possible.

On top of all of this, Israel has perfected the practice of state-sponsored mass terror; a deliberate policy aimed at making Palestinian life as unbearable as possible with the ultimate goal of forcing Palestinians to leave their homes and land altogether. This is done in broad daylight; in full view of key world powers, such as the US, EU, Russia and China, which either keep silent or issue a few terse and innocuous words about the need to stick to a peace process that has form but very little substance.

Today, as Israel is getting ready to celebrate its 60th birthday, the massive theft of Palestinian land in the West Bank, especially in East Jerusalem and its surroundings, continues unabated. Against all odds, the Palestinian people have survived. Indeed, Palestinian resilience to Israeli oppression is legendary -- a trait that continues to baffle and frustrate Israeli strategists. Perhaps it is this resilience that is encouraging influential Israeli political, military and religious leaders to openly call for genocide of the Palestinians.

Recently, Israel's Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai threatened to "inflict a greater holocaust" on Palestinians. Similarly, a growing number of rabbis associated with the two largest religious camps in
Israel, the Haredi ultra-Orthodox religious sector and the national Zionist religious sector, issuing one edict after the other, permitting soldiers to murder at will Palestinian civilians, including children, on the grounds that in war all among the enemy population ought to be treated as combatants, including children.

One might imagine that this is exaggerated, but it is not. Recently Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, director of the Tsomet Institute, a religious seminary attended by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, declared: "All
of the Palestinians must be killed; men, women, infants, and even their beasts." And the chief rabbi of the City of Safad, Shmuel Eliyahu, urged the state and the army recently to hang the children of
a Palestinian fighter who last month attacked the Merkaz Haarav Centre, run for Jewish settlers in West Jerusalem, killing eight pre-military Talmudic students in retaliation for the killing by the Israeli army of more than 130 Palestinians, most of them innocent civilians, in the Gaza Strip.

The mushrooming of fascist impulses is not confined to the religious sector. In March, the Israeli media quoted Knesset members and former cabinet ministers as threatening to extend discriminatory laws against non-Jews in ways reminiscent of Nuremberg Laws passed in Nazi Germany. One Israeli Knesset member reportedly told his Arab colleague: "the day will come when we will kick you out of this house."

Such instances raise no eyebrows in a country where some rabbis, like David Batsri, openly teach that non-Jews are animals and donkeys. A recent opinion survey published this week showed that as many as 75 per cent of Israeli Jews support ethnic cleansing of Arabs from mandate Palestine -- Israel proper and the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
Understandably, the poll drew angry reactions from the Israeli Arab community. Jamal Zahalqa, an Israeli Arab Knesset member, suggested that Arabs are being treated in ways similar to the way Jews were treated in the Third Reich ahead of World War II.

"The hateful smell of racism and fascism is wafting everywhere in this country. You must know that we didn't come to Israel from abroad... On the contrary; it was Israel that invaded us. We are the indigenous people of the land, and we receive our legitimacy from our belonging to this land, not from having Israeli citizenship," he said.

Zahalqa described the poll as "additional evidence underscoring the growing rampancy of racism and fascism in Israel as a result of the ongoing waves of hate against everything and anything Arab."

The fears of Zahalqa and other Israeli Arabs are real. Recently, hundreds of Arab residents from Jaffa, Lod and Ramleh took to the streets to protest against the planned eviction by the state of thousands of Arab residents from Jaffa. Authorities had issued warrants for the evacuation and destruction of hundreds of homes, claiming infringements on building regulations. The state also claimed that, "the families [had] lost the right to continue living in their homes, since these homes belonged to their parents ... "

"We are here and we won't leave. We will either live on this land or die on this land. We will not let you touch our lands or our holy places," said Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the Arab movement in Israel. "All your rulings belong in the trashcan. We are not afraid of you. We will continue to live in our homeland," he added.

Last year, Richard Falk, a renowned American Jewish professor of international law and practice, wrote an article entitled "Slouching toward a Palestinian holocaust," in which he warned that Israel was moving towards the perpetration of a holocaust against the Palestinians. "Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalised Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not," said Falk.

Justifying the Israel-equals-Nazi analogy, Falk argued that developments in Gaza (the blockade against its estimated 1.5 million inhabitants), were especially disturbing because they expressed
vividly a deliberate intention on the part of Israel and its backers to subject an entire human community to life- endangering conditions of maximal cruelty. "The suggestion that this pattern of conduct is a holocaust-in-the-making represents a rather desperate appeal to the governments of the world and to international public opinion to act urgently to prevent these current genocidal tendencies from culminating into a collective tragedy," Falk wrote.

In sum, from the standpoint of fascism, Israel has much to celebrate in terms of political and military achievements. But in terms of justice, morality and humanity, one struggles to name a country on
earth that so openly practices oppression and racism. As such Israel, on its 60th birthday, remains what it was when born six decades ago: a state built on blood, murder, theft and lies.

Is Israel about to change its ways? Don't hold your breath, Israeli leaders might say. Unless, that is, you're Palestinian.

in Ramallah

Source

Det kan man 9. april 2008 læse i den israelske avis Haaretz.

Målt ud fra en hvilken som helst standard og udenfor enhver diskussion er Richard Falk – professor emeritus ved Princeton University, distingveret gæsteprofessor ved University of California og medlem af bestyrelsen af The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation i Santa Barbara – en af verdens ledende internationale jurister og fredsforskere.

Han er en exceptionel produktiv skribent om international politik og har udgivet dusinvis af bøger, lærebøger og tusindvis af artikler. I en alder af 77 har han bevist sit livslange engagement for social retfærdighed, ikke-vold, et nyt global demokrati (global governance), ligesom han utrætteligt har understreget den grundlæggende betydning af international lov, menneskerettigheder og FN-Deklarationen.

TFF – Den Transnationale Stiftelse, som jeg er chef for - er særdeles stolt over at have haft professor Falk som medarbejder (Associate) i 22 år. Her kan man finde en lille del af hans enorme produktion af artikler og få syn for sagen angående hans anseelse, hans moralske engagement og udholdenhed når det kommer til at promovere vores fælles humane værdier. Her kan man også finde hans tanker om demokratisering af Mellemøsten og hans artikel "Slouching Toward a Palestinian Holocaust" (Skredet hen imod et Palæstinensisk Holocaust).

Falks forbrydelse har du allerede gættet: Han er en jødisk akademiker, der kritiserer Israels politik, besættelsen og "undermenneske-behandlingen" – mit udtryk – af palæstinenserne. Han opfatter Israel/Palæstina-konflikten som asymmetrisk og tillemper folkeretten og menneskerettighederne med integritet og civilkurage på sin helt egen måde med bløde vendinger og en venlig dialogiserende fremtræden.

Som enhver intellektuel værd sit navn, forholder Falk sig kritisk til den israelske politik, murbyggeri og militarisme med dens 200-300 atomvåben, som det forudsættes at vi aldrig snakker om eller aktionerer imod. Vestens politikere og medier praktiserer "vend-det-blinde-øje-undtagelsen" i Israels tilfælde, noget som kun tillempes i ét andet tilfælde, den selvudnævnte "exceptionalismes" hjemland: Amerikas Forenede Stater.

Disse to, Israel og USA, praktiserer et symbiotisk forhold til hinanden, som kommer til udtryk i den veldokumenterede Israel-amerikansk/jødiske lobby; og begge hælder mod autoritær politik, 'nuklearisme' og fundamentalisme baseret på en ekstremistisk tolkning af lovene i hver deres monoteistiske gudstro: Med "os/USA" på den rigtige side må "alle andre" være på den gale side.

Her er også nøglen til det faktum, at der kun er to regeringer hvis propagandamaskiner – parret med en forældet, uciviliseret politik – har etableret en norm, der siger at hvis vi kritiserer deres politik, så er vi hadefulde eller modstandere af deres folk og kultur. Enhver der kritiserer USA's politik vil have hørt opponenter kalde sig "anti-amerikanske", og hvis kritikken rettes mod Israelsk politik vil man blive kaldt "anti-semit" eller anti-Israel. At dette er det rene intellektuelle nonsens bekymrer tilsyneladende kun få.

Selv har jeg kritiseret mange lande for deres politik - også mit eget land, Danmark. Det sidste for de intellektuelt og etisk ringe grunde til bombningerne af Jugoslavien og Afghanistan, besættelsen af Irak, og for at det holder sig med de nok mest fremmedfjendtlige love mod flygtninge - endda dem fra det selv samme Irak, som vi er med til at ødelægge. Kort sagt: det Danmark der er blevet en mini-bøllestat. Jeg har kritiseret Danmarks NATO-politik og dets årti-lange hængen sig intellektuelt og politisk-militært i USAs skørter. Og skønt jeg er blevet beskyldt for meget, endda for at være spion mod mit eget land, så er jeg dog aldrig blevet kaldt "anti-dansk".

Men vær sikker: en artikel som denne vil blive læst i både Washington og Tel Aviv, og nogen vil tænke, sige eller skrive, at Jan Øberg er anti-semit eller anti-amerikansk eller begge dele. Hvis noget sådant skulle blive offentliggjort, vil jeg blæse på at det; livet er for kort til at kæmpe mod al menneskelig dumhed.. . .

Den 31. januar skrev jeg en blog-post her om Arun Gandhi-sagen. Han blev i praksis smidt ud fra sit eget fredsinstitut i USA fordi han havde kritiseret Israels besætter-politik og den skamfulde mur. Har noget dansk medie taget den op eller givet denne sag den omtale, den burde have?

Det er på tide at akademikere og NGO'ere står frem til forsvar for mennesker af en sådan integritet, hvis eneste 'forbrydelse' er at de søger en dybere sandhed, praktiserer deres ret til intellektuelle og andre friheder, og dedikerer deres liv – mod alle odds, kan man sige – til retfærdighed og fred. En skruestik på én af dem, er en skruestik på os alle.

Det er yderst naivt at tro at freds- og udviklingsforkæmpere og ditto organisationer ikke er under beskydning i disse tider med den voksende totalitarisme i de vestlige demokratier.

Efter 1989 opererer de på grundlag af en kosmologisk misforståelse – à la Doris Lessing’s Shikasta – der siger, at det eneste system der dur, og derfor er det bedste med det højeste niveau af civilisation, er deres eget. I konsekvens heraf har de en gudslignende ret til at belære resten af verden og missionere det eneste system ud på alle og enhver.

Det skal blive meget, meget spændende at se hvordan Vestens regeringer, udenrigsministre og medier vil takle sagen med Richard Falk. De har sandelig ikke forsvaret Mordechai Vanunu – manden der fortalte verden om Israels atomprogram for 22 år siden og har siddet 18 år i israelsk fængsel, 11 af disse i enecelle. Og de har med vilje ignoreret Arun Gandhis sag.

Og vi ved hvorfor – ikke sandt?

Vil FN's generalsekretær mon endelig vise sig som en mand med civilkurage, der forsvarer sit Råd for Menneskerettigheder, FN-charteret og hans egen FN-udpegede undersøgelsesleder?

Der er mere om Richard Falk og hans forgænger John Dugard og om hvad Falk virkelig har sagt, med links, på Wikipedia her.

# 1197

UN-Experte? Nein. Verschwörungstheoretiker. Sehen Sie nur, wen Richard Falk als „Experten“ bezeichnet. Dazu auch Oliver Kamms Beobachtungen.

Israels Leben jenseits der Schlagzeilen

Jimmys Welt. Alternative Reiseroute für Carters Nahost-Tour 2008.

Palästinensischer Bürgerkrieg im Libanon? Rüstet die US Army palästinensische Flüchtlinge im Libanon auf?

Wie die Iraner Sanktionen umgehen. Ganz normale iranische Bürger beweisen, wie einfach es ist, internationalen Sanktionen auszuweichen und Geld außer Landes zu schaffen.

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Lee Rogers
Rogue Government
Aprill 11, 2008

The corporate controlled media is losing more and more credibility each and every day attempting to defend the official story of the 9/11 attacks. Former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura who has been promoting his new book “Don’t Start The Revolution Without Me” on various media outlets has gone public asking serious questions about the official 9/11 story. Ventura has raised several questions about the attacks including how three buildings all fell at free fall speed in one day due to fire. This is despite the fact that no other steel framed building in the history of modern engineering has ever collapsed this way under those circumstances. In addition, the NY Sun is reporting that Richard Falk an official on the UN Human Rights Council is calling for an investigation into the neo-conservatives role in the 9/11 attacks. As the official story continues to collapse, the corporate controlled media is losing an increasing amount of credibility on this issue.

During an interview with Jesse Ventura on the Hannity and Colmes show, Sean Hannity lied to the viewing audience saying that no engineers have gone public with different views on the collapse of the three buildings. This is despite the fact that there is a group called the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth who question the official story of how the buildings fell. The group currently has 309 members all of which are employed in either the architecture or engineering fields. Hannity desperately tried to claim that hot fires brought down those buildings when it is physically impossible for jet fuels to burn hot enough in order to cause a steel framed building to collapse at free fall speed. There has never been a case where a steel framed skyscraper has collapsed at free fall speed due to fire damage. The 9/11 Commission wants us to believe that this happened three times in one day which is absolute bull.

On top of that, CHQR radio host Rob Breakenridge posted an article attempting to counter the points that Ventura makes in questioning the official 9/11 story.

From Breakenridge’s article:

Ventura obviously thinks this sounds very clever, but there’s one point on which he’s factually incorrect: it was more than three buildings. The twin towers (1WTC & 2WTC) obviously collapsed, as did 7WTC - the three buildings Ventura cites. What he neglects to mention is that 3WTC (Marriott Hotel) and St. Nick’s Cathedral also collapsed that day.

First off, the Marriott Hotel did not collapse like WTC-1, WTC-2 and WTC-7. The Marriott Hotel was actually cut in half and the infrastructure still stood following the collapse of the Twin Towers. This would make sense because this building was located in between the Twin Towers.

The St. Nick’s Cathedral was a four-story building and cannot be compared to the collapse of a 47-story building like WTC-7. WTC-7 was a large building and almost half the size of WTC-1 and WTC-2. Paul Joseph Watson from Prison Planet sums up Breakenridge’s absurd comparison nicely.

The humble church building is like an ant compared to the colossal south tower, of course it would have been crushed when the south tower collapsed. How on earth can Breakenridge draw a parallel between this tiny building and a gigantic skyscraper that was nearly half as tall as the twin towers?

What Breakenridge fails to mention is that WTC-7 which collapsed at free fall speed in approximately 6.5 seconds around 5:20 PM EST in the afternoon was located much farther away then the Marriott Hotel. The Marriott Hotel despite being severely damaged from the collapse of the Twin Towers still stood. So how does it make any sense that WTC-7 collapsed at free fall speed due to residual damage from the Twin Towers? WTC-7 had minor fire damage and basic common sense and logic dictates that it could not have fallen in the fashion it did unless explosive devices were used.

He even cites the NIST report as proof that WTC-7 couldn’t have collapsed with the use of explosives. What’s interesting about this conclusion is that the NIST report doesn’t even mention the collapse of WTC-7. He also cites other widely debunked reports that endorse theories in violation of basic laws of physics. The entire article is a joke and not based in reality.

Between this and Richard Falk going public and calling for an investigation into neo-conservative involvement in the 9/11 attacks, it is clear that the corporate controlled media is being completely discredited on the subject of the 9/11 attacks. All they can do now is lie and deceive in the hopes that people won’t look into the fraud of the official story for themselves. It is no wonder that Hannity’s web site is barely getting more traffic than alternative news sites like Blacklistednews.Com and Roguegovernment.Com. Hannity is a professional con-artist who gets paid to mislead the American people into accepting the false left-right political paradigm. This is despite the fact that he is a radio and TV host that gets broadcast on major national networks. This must be embarrassing for Hannity, but maybe if he told the truth about 9/11 and quit being an apologist for the treason and criminality of the current establishment power structure his web site traffic would go back up.

The lies of the 9/11 attacks will be exposed and with it so will the corporate controlled media’s deception on this and many other significant issues. The people who are covering up the truth about these attacks have just as much blood on their hands as the people who implemented the attacks. It has given the excuse for the Nazis in Washington DC to implement their plans for perpetual war and a draconian militarized police state here in the United States. The truth about 9/11 will hopefully help the people of the world defeat the Fourth Reich’s plans for a New World Order.

The nomination of Richard Falk is further evidence of UN backsliding in its commitment to fairly scrutinizing human rights. Not only has Falk served in a similar role in the past—he was on a 2001 special panel investigating Israeli human rights violations, suggesting that UN-HRC is recruiting from the old UNCHR pool—but his record is considerably worse than the recent news reports would suggest. [emphasis mine and something noted in my earlier post]

For instance, in 1979, not long after the inauguration of Iran's totalitarian and theocratic "revolution," Falk, then chairman of something called U.S. Citizens Concerned about Freedom in Iran, was granted space on The New York Times opinion page to shill for the incoming government of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. A month prior, Falk had flown to Paris with his comrade Ramsey Clark, the former U.S. attorney general and inveterate friend of dictators, to discuss "social justice" (Clark's phrase) with the then-exiled religious leader. Upon returning, Clark told The Washington Post that he was "deeply impressed by the nature and depth and purpose of the movement in Iran that has established the opportunity for a new freedom."

By the time Falk published his impressions of the Paris pilgrimage, the Ayatollah's gang of fundamentalist squadristi—officially known as "secret revolutionary tribunals"—was already meting out executions with little concern for due process. Nevertheless, in his Times opinion piece, Falk upbraided President Jimmy Carter for "associating [Khomeini] with religious fanaticism," and declared that "the depiction of him as fanatical, reactionary, and the bearer of crude religious prejudices seems certainly and happily false." Indeed, "his entourage of close advisers is uniformly composed of moderate, progressive individuals." [emphasis mine (after my jaw hit the floor) -ed.]

This was too much for the Times' preeminent liberal columnist, Anthony Lewis, who ripped Falk's column as "outstandingly silly." It was clear to those not blinded by ideology, Lewis wrote, that the "Ayatollah has set out, without equivocation or disguise, to turn the clock back and give Iran a theocratic regime." With hindsight, it is perhaps tempting to see Lewis's column as prescient, and Falk as merely a naïve, anti-Shah activist duped by the regime's unsophisticated propaganda apparatus. But as contemporaneous news accounts make clear, the theocratic and dictatorial character of the Khomeini clique was widely acknowledged by Middle East observers well before the hostage crisis. [emphasis mine -ed.]

That's right.  It's not that Falk is just incredibly naive.  He's evil... and a Troofer, too.  Unfortunately, as Moynihan rightly notes, the circus around Falk is drawing attention away from other foul deeds by the HRC.

As media coverage of Falk's nomination has metastasized, it has unfortunately obscured news of UN-HRC's nomination of the Swiss socialist Jean Ziegler to the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee. A brief recapitulation of Ziegler's qualifications: In 1996, he defended Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy not only on free speech grounds—an admirable position, after all—but further celebrated his supposed scholarship. "All your work as a writer and philosopher," Ziegler wrote, "attests to the rigor of your analysis and the unwavering honesty of your intentions. It makes you one of the leading thinkers of our time." He lauded the Zimbabwean tyrant Robert Mugabe, a leader who "has history and morality with him." He offered his "total support for the Cuban revolution." He recently told a Lebanese newspaper the he "refuse[d] to describe Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. It is a national movement of resistance."

Apparently, the UN just slapped a new label on the rotting flesh of the old Commission on Human Rights.  Tell me again why we still participate in this outdated, bloated, corrupt, evil farce?

Derrière la muraille de "sécurité", l'ONU ne passe plus. Après les médias, et les ambulances qui se faisaient canarder, comme à la foire par les snipers Israéliens , vient le tour des diplomates de l'ONU. Avec son lourd passé de crimes et de rapines de terres, Sion refuse d'écouter cette outil à peine moins docile qu'est l'ONU.

Verrons nous des diplomates fondre en pleur, et se confondre en excuses alors qu'un génocide se déroule de l'autre coté de la muraille ? Mais ce n'est pas le premier refus que l'ONU essuie il y a plus grave Durban

Peut être que c'est ça qui les pousse à massacrer et à spolier, pour "nettoyer" le terrain comme ils disaient les nazis. Là c'est "Judaïser" qui est employé, mais il ne faut pas s'y tromper. C'est un vol accompagné de crimes innommables.

Imaginez un instant le Diplomate qui obligé de passer là : Bethlehem checkpoint, 4h du mat les palestiniens doivent se déplacer entre leur centres d'intérêts et villes pour vivre et échanger entre eux le peu de marchandises qu'il leur reste. Beaucoup par désespoir et pour nourrir leur familles construisent eux mêmes ce mur, pour un salaire de misère. De l'esclavage moderne. Pas mal le progrès et la civilisation. Imaginez vous obligé de passer par la à la même heure pour aller voir la sale tronche de votre patron,

L'article.

Le régime sioniste refuse de coopérer avec l'ONU

http://french.irib.ir

New York Post 04.10.08

By ELI LAKE
Staff Reporter of the Sun

WASHINGTON — A new U.N. Human Rights Council official assigned to monitor Israel is calling for an official commission to study the role neoconservatives may have played in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

On March 26, Richard Falk, Milbank professor of international law emeritus at Princeton University, was named by unanimous vote to a newly created position to report on human rights in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. While Mr. Falk's specialty is human rights and international law, since the attacks in 2001, he has devoted some of his time to challenging what he calls the "9-11 official version."

On March 24 in an interview with a radio host and former University of Wisconsin instructor, Kevin Barrett, Mr. Falk said, "It is possibly true that especially the neoconservatives thought there was a situation in the country and in the world where something had to happen to wake up the American people. Whether they are innocent about the contention that they made that something happen or not, I don't think we can answer definitively at this point. All we can say is there is a lot of grounds for suspicion, there should be an official investigation of the sort the 9/11 commission did not engage in and that the failure to do these things is cheating the American people and in some sense the people of the world of a greater confidence in what really happened than they presently possess."

Mr. Barrett, who is the co-founder of the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth, said in an interview yesterday of Mr. Falk, "I would put him on a list of scholars who are sympathetic to the 9/11 truth movement."

He added, "Unlike most public intellectuals today, he is both honest and very, very knowledgeable in that he understands the probable reality of 9/11. He understands that the evidence that it was a false flag operation is very strong."

The narrative that the attacks from 2001 were a "false flag" operation is a recurring theme in the literature challenging the consensus that 19 Al Qaeda hijackers flew commercial jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. False flag refers to espionage or covert actions taken by one government made to seem like the work of another. The false flag thesis has it that the Bush administration is somehow responsible for the September 11 attacks as a pretext for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Mr. Falk yesterday did not return e-mails and phone calls asking for a comment. But in 2004 he wrote the foreword to the book "The New Pearl Harbor," by David Ray Griffin. Mr. Griffin has posited that such an inside job is the likely explanation for the attacks.

n the preface, Mr. Falk writes, "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 has had the patience, the fortitude, the courage, and the intelligence to put the pieces together in a single coherent account."

When asked for a comment about the appointment of Mr. Falk, a former American ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton said, "This is exactly why we voted against the new human rights council." A spokesman for the American embassy at the United Nations offered no comment yesterday when asked.

A spokeswoman at the United Nations, Nancy Groves, yesterday also declined to comment. "I would not make a comment on how the member states vote on appointments. It is their council, they make their decisions," she said.

Mr. Falk's selection to the post as rapporteur has already prompted the government of Israel formally to request that Mr. Falk not be sent to their country. The Israeli press has reported that he may even be barred from entering the country.

The deputy permanent representative of Israel to the United Nations in New York, Daniel Carmon said, "We are asking the U.N. not to send him. We cannot agree to Mr. Falk's entrance into Israel in his capacity as the rapporteur."

One reason the Israelis are concerned about his appointment is that Mr. Falk has compared Israel's treatment of Palestinian Arabs to the Nazi treatment of Jews in the holocaust. In an April 8 BBC interview, Mr. Falk said he stood by the Israel-Nazi comparison.

The national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, issued a statement yesterday saying, "This was clearly a singularly inappropriate choice for this position. Falk's startling record of anti-Israel prejudice should have been enough to preclude him from a position where an unbiased observer is needed to report on the status of human rights in the territories."

In a February 16, 1979, op-ed for the New York Times, Mr. Falk praised Ayatollah Khomeini and bemoaned his ill treatment in the American press. He wrote, "The depiction of him as fanatical, reactionary and the bearer of crude prejudices seems certainly and happily false."Nearly nine months later, student followers of Khomeini invaded the American embassy in Tehran and held 52 diplomats hostage for the following 444 days.

From AP via IHT

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that it will not allow the U.N. official appointed to investigate Israeli-Palestinian human rights to enter the country, after he stood by comments comparing Israelis to Nazis.

...

"To compare Israel to the Nazis is not just a total falsehood, it's also a personal insult to everybody," he said.

Mekel said 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.

Who would dream accuse the UN Human Rights Council of being anti-Israel?  Umm... me, for one.  Just look at some of the members on the HRC.

Or check out Ronan Farrow's piece at WSJ from earlier this year.

January 29, 2008; Page A16

Last week the U.N. Human Rights Council held an emergency session, organized by Arab and Muslim nations, to condemn Israel for its military actions in the Gaza strip. That the council is capable of swift and decisive action is a welcome surprise; that Israel remains the only nation to provoke such action is not. In the 17 months since its inception, the body has passed 13 condemnations, 12 of them against Israel.

The council replaced what was widely viewed as a cancer on the United Nations -- an ineffectual "Commission on Human Rights" that also had a single-minded focus on Israel. According to former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, "the selectivity and politicizing of its activities [were] in danger of bringing the entire U.N. system into disrepute."

The removal of the diseased commission two years ago was heralded by U.N. officials as "the dawn of a new era." Its replacement was designed to have stricter standards for membership, and rules to prevent politicized voting. But such safeguards were neutered by the time the new Human Rights Council was approved, and the results are that the council is no better than its predecessor.

The problems begin with the council's composition. Only 25 of its 47 members are classified as "free democracies," according to Freedom House's ranking of civil liberties. Nine are classified as "not free." Four -- China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia -- are ranked as the "worst of the worst." These nations are responsible for repeated violations of the U.N.'s own Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet it is they who dominate the council, leading a powerful bloc of predominantly Arab and African nations that consistently vote as a unit.

I hope that Falktard never steps foot in Israel.  The Human Rights Council, for all the supposed reforms that were going to make it better than its previous incarnation, it is every bit the disease the Commission on Human Rights was.  Falktard is just another symptom.

]]> http://boredmelo.wordpress.com/?p=36 Tue, 08 Apr 2008 12:19:48 +0000 melo http://boredmelo.da.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/richard-falk-rabid-leftist-stands-by-nazi-comments/ From BBC

The next UN investigator into Israel conduct in the occupied territories has stood by comments comparing Israeli actions in Gaza to those of the Nazis.

...

A spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that Israel wanted the UN investigator's mandate changed, so that he could look into human rights violations by the Palestinians as well as Israel.

If that were not to happen, the Israeli government may consider barring entry to the new UN investigator.

Richard Falk has quite the backstory.  This is a man who not only considers the US the root cause of Islamic terrorism, but he even supported Ayatollah Khomeni's revolution in Iran.

Central to the theme of his life’s work, which includes the writing of more than twenty books, is Falk’s consistent opposition to American foreign policies, [emphasis mine -ed.] including the War on Terror. He characterizes such measures as the Domestic Security Enhancement Act and the Patriot Act as “sweeping powers” that represent a “slide toward fascism.” [emphasis mine -ed.]

...

In Falk's calculus, the root cause of Islamic terrorist attacks is that “the mass of humanity … finds itself under the heels of U.S. economic, military, cultural, and diplomatic power.” In 1979 he was an enthusiastic supporter of the Ayatollah Khomeni, [emphasis mine -ed.] who he hailed as a “liberator” of Iran. Falk continues to invariably side with America's foes in international disputes.

...

Prior to the [Iraq] invasion, Falk had worked closely with the anti-sanctions organization Voices in the Wilderness, helping the group to formulate legal arguments against the U.N.-authorized, U.S.-enforced sanctions against Iraq. [emphasis mine -ed.]

Falk is the current Chairman of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, whose recommended strategy for combating terrorism is to increase U.S. aid to those countries that act as a breeding ground for terrorists. [emphasis mine -ed.]

He is also a longtime prominent member of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) -- a Communist front group which at one point operated under the direction of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. [emphasis mine -ed.]

discoverthenetworks.org

As disgusting as any of the above is, nothing quite matches Richard Falk's own words in his "article" Slouching toward a Palestinian Holocaust.

But Gaza is morally far worse, although mass death has not yet resulted. [emphasis mine -ed.] It is far worse because the international community is watching the ugly spectacle unfold while some of its most influential members actively encourage and assist Israel in its approach to Gaza. Not only the United States, but also the European Union, are complicit, as are such neighbors as Egypt and Jordan apparently motivated by their worries that Hamas is somehow connected with their own problems associated with the rising strength of the Muslim Brotherhood within their own borders.

I am glad that I did not eat breakfast before reading this horse pile.  I would still be retching.

Here's what the Jerusalem Post has to say about the UN's appointment of Falk:

UNHRC appointment infuriates Israel
TOVAH LAZAROFF | JPost | Mar 27, 2008

The United Nations Human Rights Council on Wednesday appointed American Jewish law professor Richard A. Falk - who has compared Israel to the Nazis - as special investigator on Israeli actions in the territories for a six-year term.

Falk, who formerly taught international law at Princeton University, replaces South African professor John Dugard, who was an expert on apartheid. Dugard leaves his post in June after seven years. He made waves when he compared Israeli actions in the territories with apartheid and colonialism. Falk, in his academic writing, has already stated that a Palestinian holocaust was in the making.

Yitzhak Levanon, ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, spoke against Falk's appointment in an address to the council on Wednesday. "In a recent article, [Falk] stated that he did not think it to be "an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with the criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity," Levanon said. "He has taken part in a UN fact-finding mission which determined that suicide bombings were a valid method of 'struggle,'" Levanon said. "He has disturbingly charged Israel with 'genocidal tendencies,' and accused it of trying to achieve security through 'state terrorism,'" Levanon said. "Someone who has publicly and repeatedly stated such views cannot possibly be considered independent, impartial or objective," Levanon said.

...but why not read what Falk himself has to say about the analogy? There is a full list of Falk's online publications for the Swedish Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research at http://www.transnational.org/SAJT/tff/people/r_falk.html.

--L.L. Wynn

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