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Israeli newspaper: potential nominees for senior UN position 'anti-Israel'

April 5, 2014 at 3:37 pm

The mission of the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories Richard Falk is coming to its end in two months.


By then, Falk would have finished the four year term in this position. Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv said on Wednesday that Israel started in advance to counter names of possible successors as “anti-Israelis are going to succeed an anti-Israel”international official.

Ma’ariv said that Israel accuses Professor Falk, who is of Jewish descent, of supporting the Islamic Palestinian movement Hamas, justifying the attack on the US Twin Towers and describing Israel as a “Nazi State”.

The newspaper noted Falk’s successors would be at odds with Israel and included the names of six potential nominees from amongst tens to take his position. According to the newspaper, Israel said these six are anti-Israel.

One of the potential successors is Falk’s current aide Phyllis Bennis, who is a female American Jew. Israel says she used to incite wars and takes part in campaigns to boycott Israel.

She, the newspaper said, officially supports the two-state solution but has previously said: “The establishment of a Palestinian state on part of the original Palestinian land is an unjust solution.”

Ma’ariv reported that Bennis said: “Palestinians are not Nazis and they are not responsible for the Holocaust, while in fact, they are paying the price for it.”The newspaper said that she pledged to follow the footsteps of Falk if appointed to this position.

Other potential nominees for this position, the Israeli newspaper said, are the British lawyer Michael Mansfield, who represented the Palestinian prisoners accused of attacking the Israeli embassy in London in 1994.

Mansfield published several article in the Guardian praising the Freedom Flotilla, the aid convoy attacked in the Mediterranean Sea by the Israeli commandos in 2010 while it was heading to break the Israeli siege on Gaza since 2006 until now. He said Israel was “putting itself above the international law”.

Another contender is international law expert professor William Schabas, who criticised Israel and praised Iran, according to the Israeli newspaper. He equates the Israeli actions in the occupied territories with crimes carried out in Yugoslavia.

The French Judge Christine Chanet is another potential nominee. She described building Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories as contravening international law.

Yan Heisenberg, who visited Gaza in 2011 and described the situation there as “genocide committed against a nation”, is also a potential candidate.