Richard Falk

Overview

Richard Falk is a widely discredited professor emeritus of International Law at Princeton University who used his position at the United Nations (U.N.) to spread unsubstantiated allegations against Israel.

From 2008 until 2014, Falk served as the Special Reporteur on "the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territories occupied since 1967" for the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

After he was denied entry into Israel on December 14, 2008, Falk began to submit annual reports to the U.N. regarding "the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territories occupied since 1967." These reports, lacking any first hand access to the areas in question, are rife with Falk’s personal biases.

Throughout his annual U.N. reports, Falk focused exclusively on measures taken by Israel in response to acts of Palestinian terrorism. Stripped of their context, these measures were used by Falk to make unsubstantiated charges of human rights violations against Israel before the UNHRC.

As a result of his apparent biases, Falk was widely criticized, his reports largely discredited and several calls were made for his resignation from U.N. officials, the United States and Europe — including Former U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, former U.N. Chief Ban Ki-moon and Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird.

Falk has written extensively in his official U.N. reports and elsewhere, accusing Israel of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and comparing the Israeli government to Nazis.

Falk works to garner support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and propagates allegations that Israel is guilty of conducting policies of apartheid.

Accusing Israel of Ethnic Cleansing and Apartheid  

In his reports, Falk also drew regular parallels between Israeli laws and apartheid, comparisons for which he received widespread criticism and condemnation.

Falk further clarified this position in a 2017 report for the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA) he co-authored with Professor Virginia Tilley, entitled "Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid."

In this report, Falk and Tilley charged: "By developing discrete bodies of law… for each territory and their Palestinian populations Israel has both effected and veiled a comprehensive policy of apartheid directed at the whole Palestinian people."

The pair went on to claim that "Israel has exploited this fragmentation to secure Jewish national-domination."

The unsubstantiated nature of these accusations led to the rejection of his report by U.N. chief Antonio Guterres and other prominent members of the organization, as well as its erasure from the U.N. website.

Legitimizing Violence Against Israelis  

Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany

In a 2007 article discussing the situation in Gaza, Falk described the actions of the Israeli government and military as ushering in a "Palestinian Holocaust."

He rhetorically posed the question: "Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not."

For this comparison, Falk received widespread criticism, especially from former Israeli U.N. Ambassador Itzhak Levanon, who opposed Falk’s 2008 appointment to the UN on the basis of those comments.

One-Sided Reporting to the U.N.

In his reports and speeches, Falk fails to acknowledge Palestinian terrorism, and instead, focuses exclusively on Israeli actions taken in response to those acts of aggression.

In his 2013 UNHRC report, Falk stated that "the thousands of Palestinians detained or imprisoned by Israel continues to be extremely worrisome."

He further called for "the establishment of a commission of inquiry into the situation of Palestinians detained or imprisoned by Israel" with no acknowledgment or even mention of the security concerns cited by Israel as the cause for the policies he criticized.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice condemned Falk’s "one-sided and politicized approach," describing his comments as “so noxious that it should finally be plain to all that he should no longer continue in his position.”

Rice went on to say that "the cause of Human Rights will be better advanced without Mr. Falk and the distasteful sideshow he has chosen to create."

Promoting BDS

Falk frequently exploited his position at the U.N. to rally support for the BDS movement. In his 2012 annual report as U.N. Special Reporteur, he expressed support for BDS, encouraging U.S. companies and the public to withdraw their support from Israel.

In 2014, Falk elaborated on his stance, urging both companies and civil society "to join the growing global solidarity movement to resist the prolonged Israeli occupation and creeping annexation of Palestine."

Since leaving his position in the U.N., Falk has continued to express support for BDS on Twitter.

BDS

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true. 

One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”  

Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”

In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”

The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.

BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.

The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.

Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.

BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.

Social Media and Weblinks

Twitter:https://twitter.com/rfalk13

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/richard.falk.940

Blog:https://richardfalk.wordpress.com/