Falk as the Jester in the Human Rights Council's Kangaroo Court

"U.N. Rights Investigator Expelled by Israel"
A14, Tuesday 12/16/08
By Isabel Kershner

This article describes Israel’s decision to expel Richard Falk, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories. A seemingly mundane story like this carries weight since many people see the UN as an essential multilateral institution. But despite the UN’s unique standing as a global institution, that does not always make it fair or just, particularly when it comes to the UN Human Rights Council. This council, ironically dominated by authoritarian abusers of human rights, has principally been used as a platform to demonize Israel while ignoring the manifest human rights abuses in such places as Darfur.

In the council, “the special rapporteur on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is its only expert mandate with no year of expiry,” placing Falk in a unique position of influence. This sort of context, which Kershner doesn’t delve into, is necessary in understanding why Israel would deem it necessary to ban the intensely doctrinaire Falk from the country. As Kershner rightfully notes, “he has compared Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to Nazi atrocities and has called for more serious examination of the conspiracy theories surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks.” This clearly makes him an inappropriate official and the council’s own (disregarded) requirements “call for envoys to be impartial and objective.”

Over halfway through the article, Kershner decides to casually mention that “the council’s own procedures require its envoys to operate with the consent of the state concerned,” making this whole story much less controversial than it first appears. This essential information would have better served the article in the first paragraph.

Then, of course, Kershner needs to drag in a contrarian voice, writing that “some Israelis questioned the wisdom of banning him, noting that it would hardly make his reports more sympathetic.” By “some Israelis,” she actually means Jessica Montell, the executive director of B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group in the Palestinian territories. It is egregiously misleading though, to write that Montell, or B’Tselem, represent a significant number of Israelis. B’Tselem has a highly politicized understanding of human rights that routinely demonizes Israel and has gone as far as to accuse the Israeli government of implementing apartheid-like policies.

Overall, the reader deserves much more from this poor article, particularly regarding the Human Rights Council’s systematic demonization of Israel and its utter indifference to the world’s most pressing human rights violations. Falk’s appointment as special rapporteur is a symptom of this deeply-ingrained anti-Israel hatred in much of the international community.