Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Israel kicks out outrageously biased UN official

By Dion Nissenbaum - (JWR)

Has the Jewish State finally learned its lesson?

JERUSALEM — No one can say they didn’t see it coming: Israel this week expelled a United Nations investigator who compared Israeli policies to the Nazi Holocaust.

Israeli officials barred Richard Falk from entering Israel to investigate its policies towards the Palestinians because, as one Israeli official said, of Falk’s “extreme, methodic criticism of Israel.”

Last April, Falk was named to be the U.N. Human Rights Council’s special investigator on the Palestinian territories — and Israel made it clear at the time that the Princeton University professor emeritus and American Jew was not going to be welcome.

The heart of the matter is a 2007 piece Falk wrote with the provocative title: “Slouching Toward a Palestinian Holocaust.”

“Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity?” Falk wrote in the piece. “I think not. 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. 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 in a collective tragedy.”

The inflammatory article was widely criticized by Israeli leaders who made it clear, for obvious reasons, that they didn’t view Falk as an impartial arbiter.

“Of all the people to be able to appoint, to find somebody who compares Israel to the Nazis is very bizarre and outrageous,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said at the time.

In May, Falk had a chance to explain what he meant in an extended interview on the BBC.

While Falk said he regretted using the analogies, under persistent pressure from the host, he stood by his statements.

After sending Falk packing Monday, the Israeli government criticized Falk and the U.N. for appointing him to the post.

“In the case of Prof. Falk, beyond the imbalance inherent in his mandate, the bias is further exacerbated by the highly politicized views of the Rapporteur himself, in legitimizing Hamas terrorism and drawing shameful comparisons to the Holocaust,” the Israeli government said. “In light of his vehement publications in the past, it is hard to square his appointment with the requirements of the Council’s own internal procedures which call for the appointment of mandate holders who are impartial, objective and possess the quality of personal integrity.”