Richard Falk apologises to Jews and dogs

From UN Watch in Geneva, July 7, 2011 — Issue 302:

UN Official Admits Posting “Strongly Anti-Semitic” [Palestinian] Cartoon

GENEVA, July 7 -- After the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories finally admitted to posting a “strongly anti-Semitic” cartoon on his blog, in which Jews and Americans were depicted as bloodthirsty dogs, UN Watch today called on UN rights chief Navi Pillay to lead efforts to fire him.

Click here for Falk statement and timeline.

Richard Falk's “apology” raises serious questions that go to both his judgment and his character. Finding himself in a corner of his own making, he states that, “I oppose any denigration of a people based on ethnicity, race, religion,” as if this were a special badge of honor....

Even stranger is the banality that follows, “We must . . .. treat animals with as much respect as possible.” Falk here appears not only to be equating animals with human beings, but to be apologizing for his cartoon's insult to Jews as well as dogs. 

Do these mutterings truly befit someone the UN Human Rights Council has chosen to employ as an expert on human rights?

This is only the latest of several Falk blog posts this year which have harmed the reputation of the UN as a whole.

In January he implied American complicity in the 9/11 attacks—Falk is a revered figure among proponents of the 9/11 conspiracy theory—while last month he called UN chief Ban Ki-moon a shameless secretary-general.”

Richard Falk clearly lacks the judgment required for a credible human rights figure and moral authority.

• His support for the Hamas terrorist group is so strong that, as he himself disclosed to the Ma’an news agency, the Palestinian Authority last year urged him to quit.
• In 1979, he endorsed Ayatollah Khomeini in a New York Times op-ed.
• These days he offers apologetics for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Osama bin Laden.

...In January, after Falk suggested a 9/11 cover-up, Ban Ki-moon denounced Falk before the council plenary. “I condemn this sort of inflammatory rhetoric,” Ban told the assembled delegates. “It is preposterous—an affront to the memory of the more than 3,000 people who died in that tragic terrorist attack.”

US Ambassador Susan Rice said Falk’s comments were “despicable and deeply offensive.” She called for him to be fired, saying that the cause of human rights “will be better advanced without Mr. Falk and the distasteful sideshow he has chosen to create.” ....

USA condemns UN Human Rights Council's 'structural bias' against Israel

From American Thinker, March 02, 2011, BY Leo Rennert:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Geneva on Feb. 28 for a major U.S. policy address to the UN Human Rights Council. ...[she] welcomed the ouster of Libya from the Council ...[but] her speech was more newsworthy on two other counts.

First, she called for creation by the Council of a special rapporteur to document human-rights abuses in Iran -- "Why do people have the right to live free from fear in Tripoli but not in Tehran?" she asked

and second, she slammed the Council for its "structural bias against Israel."

This was a dramatic, public spanking of a Human Rights Council that has disgraced itself by its singular determination to demonize Israel, while ignoring real human-rights abuses in China, Russia, Burma, Iran, Cuba and, until last week, Libya. Only four months earlier, the Council actually had heaped praise on Qaddafi's regime.

Here is what Clinton had to say about the abysmal behavior of the Human Rights Council vis a vis Israel:

"The structural bias against Israel -- including a standing agenda item for Israel, whereas all other countries are treated under a common item -- is wrong. And it undermines the important work we are trying to do together. As member states, we can take the Council in a better, stronger direction.

"The Council must apply a single standard to all countries based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It cannot continue to single out and devote disproportionate attention to any one country."

...another newsworthy nugget in Clinton's speech in Geneva --her flat rejection of a long-standing campaign by Muslim countries to criminalize criticism of Islam.

While Jerusalem welcomed her defense of Israel to be treated equally with other UN members, there must have been lots of rumpled feelings in capitals throughout the Muslim world for her demand that the Council "move beyond a decade-long debate over whether insults to religion should be banned or criminalized. It is time to overcome the false divide that pits religious sensitivities against freedom of expression."

Supporters of the First Amendment have been in the forefront of pushing back against Islamic efforts to criminalize criticism of passages in the Koran....Clinton's sharp denunciation of the Council's vendetta against Israel was doubly newsworthy; first, because she delivered it directly to its intended target at a plenary session of the Council, and, second, because it came from the foreign policy chief of the Obama administration, which has been more wont to blame Israel than to defend it on the world stage. Prime Minister Netanyahu still has personal scars from withering Clinton criticisms to prove the point.

Arab Hypocrisy in the UN (again)

From a UN Watch report on UN Human Rights Council, 14th Session
Debate on Racism, 16 June 2010:



Pakistan for the Islamic Group: The intellectual climate in the West is increasingly marked by a disturbing tendency to demonize Islam… Muslims are being demonized and dehumanized as Jews were in the inter-war period of the last century…

Qatar: The sufferings of Arab and Muslim communities in Western countries in terms of discrimination…

Libya: Israel’s occupation of Palestine and the other occupied Arab territories is based on racism… The phenomenon of racial discrimination and incitement to hatred against Muslims through attempts to distort the picture of Islam through relating it to terrorism… Making insults against the Holy Prophet in the media, particularly in certain Western European countries…

Pakistan for the Islamic Group: Contemporary manifestations of racism prevail in different parts of the world — in particular in Western societies…

Sudan for the Arab Group: Islamophobia in countries of the North… The racist practices of Israel, the occupying force in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, is one of the worst forms of racism…

UN Watch Responds: Mr Rapporteur, this Council recently adopted yet another resolution expressing its deep concern about serious instances of deliberate media stereotyping of religions, their adherents, and sacred persons.

Your report calls for an end to such media stereotyping and incitement to hatred.

During your work, have you ever noticed that the countries that are the most egregious practitioners of this stereotyping, in the form of caricatures, are those who sponsor and support these UN resolutions?

In particular, have you ever noticed that state-controlled newspapers in the Middle East regularly publish the most repugnant anti-Semitic cartoons?

Depictions of Jews as bloodthirsty are commonplace. For example, in Jordan, on January 15, 2009, Al-Arab al-Yaum published a cartoon of a hunch-backed and hook-nosed Jew, drinking Palestinian blood.

Other images promote the notion of a Jewish conspiracy. In 2008, Syria’s Al-Watan published a cartoon of a religious Jew holding puppets of U.S. presidential candidates McCain and Obama.

Jews are regularly depicted as bloodthirsty murderers. In Qatar, on June 2, 2010, Al-Watan published a caricature of a Jew who is half-man and half-octopus, wielding a weapon and an axe dripping with blood.

One could also cite dozens of caricatures portraying Jews stealing organs of Palestinians, such as this one published in Oman, on August 20, 2009, in Al-Watan.

All of these caricatures are reminiscent of the Nazi area, and depict religious Jews in classic stereotypes: long beards, black hats and coats, all of which target the Jewish religion and its adherents.

Mr. Rapporteur, in your investigation of intolerance and religious hatred, we call upon you to examine first — as logic would require — the countries that sponsor these resolutions.

Thank you, Mr. President.

(The UN Watch intervention was delivered by Lisa Levy.)