Richard Falk, Controversial U.N. Official, Blames Boston Bombing on Israel Support
Image by Wayne Schoenfeld
Richard Falk, an official for the U.N. Human Rights Council, in an online commentary blamed the Boston Marathon bombing on “Tel Aviv.”
“(A)s long as Tel Aviv has the compliant ear of the American political establishment, those who wish for peace and justice in the world should not rest easy,” Falk, the council’s special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, wrote in an Op-Ed posted to the online Foreign Policy Journal on Tuesday.
Falk, who has said the George W. Bush administration was complicit in the 9/11 attacks, also called the Boston attack “retribution” for the actions of the U.S. military in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.
“The American global domination project is bound to generate all kinds of resistance in the post-colonial world,” Falk wrote. “In some respects, the United States has been fortunate not to experience worse blowbacks, and these may yet happen, especially if there is no disposition to rethink US relations to others in the world, starting with the Middle East.”
In recent months, Falk published an anti-Semitic cartoon on his blog and called for a boycott of Israel.
B’nai B’rith International called for Falk’s removal from the Human Rights Council, saying that his ” latest string of inflammatory remarks – whether it be on the Internet or in one of his ‘reports’ to the council – has no place in the United Nations and his continued presence at the UNHRC further undermines the credibility of the system.”
Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, calling on them to condemn Falk’s “odious and preposterous” remarks.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
