Former UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Palestine Slams Nikki Haley for Israel Support

: Rachel Frommer

February 1, 2018 11:03 am

The former United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Palestine lashed out against UN Ambassador Nikki Haley in a new interview with a website that pushes 9/11 and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international affairs at Princeton University, in an interview published Tuesday with the American Herald Tribune, attacked Haley as a disgraceful diplomat.

"Haley references to her use of American geopolitical muscle to undermine the integrity of the UN as an organization responsive to international law and to the principles of non-discrimination with respect to its internal operations should be an occasion of shame, not boastful pride," Falk said.

Falk, who completed his term as Special Rapporteur in 2014, went on to upbraid Haley for her denunciation of his 2017 report charging that Israel is an "apartheid regime."

Falk's report, titled "Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid" and co-authored by Virginia Tilley, a political science professor at Southern Illinois University, was received with disgust and outrage by the Israelis and the United States when it was initially published on the UN Economic and Social Commission for West Asia website.

Haley publicly dismissed Falk as a "man who has repeatedly made biased and deeply offensive comments about Israel and espoused ridiculous conspiracy theories."

Pressure from Haley led to the UN quickly taking down the report and the resignation of a senior UN official.

This week, Falk challenged Haley to bring evidence to counter his claims that Israel engages in racial persecution of Palestinians, dismissing her past criticism as evidence that she likely hasn't read his report.

"It seems easier for Israel's defenders to attack the messenger rather than to address the message. Haley complains that the UN is responsible for Israel-bashing, but the larger and more damaging reality is that the U.S. engages in vicious UN-bashing," he told the Tribune.

"Zionist control" over media, politics, and the world, as well as defenses of Holocaust deniers as free thinkers are favored topics at the the Tribune, where Falk—who has appeared in 9/11 truther and Holocaust denial media in the past—is also a contributor.

The site has published articles on "Jewish Zionist Control in the United States" and "9/11 and the Zionist Question," and a recent piece on the "Deep State" proposed an international Zionist conspiracy by which Zionists "subvert entire countries" via social media. "Decent Jews" were absolved of responsibility.

The Tribune's editor-in-chief, Anthony Hall, a tenured professor of globalization studies at Canada’s University of Lethbridge, was temporarily suspended and investigated for his arguments that Israel is responsible for international terror attacks and questioning the Holocaust, comments many saw as anti-Semitic.