Quotes by Richard Falk

From the most recent report by the UN SR on Palestinian rights.

Selected extracts (emphasis mine)

A. Settlement freeze
21. On 25 November 2009, Prime Minister Netanyahu proposed a 10-month freeze on settlement growth in the West Bank...

22. Palestinian criticism centred on the fact that the freeze did not include public buildings in the West Bank settlements, several thousand residential units under construction, or any building in occupied East Jerusalem. The original call for a freeze, by President Barack Obama, did call for a temporary freeze to be extended to the whole of the OPT, including East Jerusalem. The disappointing response of the United States to the Israeli initiative was articulated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “Today’s announcement by the Government of Israel helps move forward towards resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements”. One can only wonder about how big a departure from 1967 borders are envisaged to “reflect subsequent developments” and “meet Israeli security requirements”. Such an assertion by a senior official of the United States Government seems to be a virtual invitation to Israel to continue creating facts on the ground, presumably even if these facts occur in violation of international humanitarian law. It is also notable that, in his statement announcing the freeze, the Israeli Prime Minister twice used the settler terminology of Greater Israel, that is, “Judea and Samaria”, rather than the language adopted by the United Nations and the international community, that is, “the occupied West Bank” or simply “the West Bank”, which could be interpreted as staking an implicit claim for the eventual annexation of the West Bank, and not as a step towards the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.

23. The settlement movement, represented by Danny Dayan, chair of the main settler body, defiantly expressed objections: “We are 300,000 citizens living in 150 communities. It is impossible to freeze us. I don’t know how it will happen, but we will break this freeze.” A variety of legal and non-violent settler initiatives have reinforced the Dayan statement, as well as an array of unlawful violent expressions of opposition to the freeze. The scope of the freeze is definitely less than meets the eye. Despite the freeze, construction will continue on 3,000 housing units in West Bank settlements for which permits have already been issued, and the freeze does not apply to public facilities such as schools, shops, meeting and administrative halls. It will, however, delay the construction of 18,000 housing units for which permits have been issued, but will not be built during the freeze. In addition, it has been reported that hundreds of construction permits were obtained by various settlements just prior to the announcement of the freeze. A Likud minister, Benny Begin, has said that the settlement population could grow by 10,000 even during the period of the freeze.To further diminish the impact of the freeze, after a large settler demonstration in Tel Aviv, the Prime Minister offered settlements some new tax breaks and other economic benefits, as well as reassuring settlers that after the freeze period “my government will revert to the policies of previous governments in relation to construction”.

24. As has been pointed out many times in past reports of the Special Rapporteur and his predecessors, the settlements are all unlawful due to the prohibition in article 49 (6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention. This provision prohibits the transfer of the population of an occupying Power to the occupied territory, particularly in this case where Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders — as legally prescribed by Security Council resolution 242 — is gravely compromised by the extensive settlement development, its related network of Israeli-only roads, the ongoing construction of the separation barrier, and the sustained effort to establish favourable facts on the ground, which would ultimately be relied upon by Israel as the basis for negotiating some agreed outcome. Finally, there have been hints by Mr. Netanyahu that if the Palestinian Authority does not soon reciprocate to the extent of agreeing to start peace talks, Israel may suspend the partial freeze...

B. The Israeli national regional priorities plan

25. There are further developments that suggest the real intentions of Israel with respect to the future of the settlements, and that undermine the credibility of the freeze as a prelude to the withdrawal of Israel from the West Bank, at least from the territory outside the so- called settlement blocs. In this respect, the 21 votes to 5 adoption by the full Israeli cabinet of a plan to fund settlements within the framework of “national regional priorities” to the extent of $30 million for about 90 settlements, homes for 110,000 existing settlers, is a disturbing development. Such investment would not make any sense if Israel is contemplating relinquishing substantial control over the West Bank, as these settlements are spread out all over the occupied territory. As the respected Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, has observed, these moves demonstrate that the freeze is “a sham”, and reveal Israel’s real goals. A close cabinet associate of Mr. Netanyahu, Yuval Steinitz, Minister of Finance, confirmed this concern by pointing out that the priorities plan shows that the Netanyahu Government continues to support the settlers despite the freeze. A strident critique has appeared in Haaretz under the byline of Zvi Bar’el: “The folly lies in how the new map renders void the decision to freeze construction in the settlements. ... The objective, then, is to create housing opportunities in the settlements and increase the number of settlers, as well as other dubious facts on the ground.” What seems most destructive of prospects for the realization of the Palestinian right of self-determination is the treatment of former “fringe settlements” as if they were part of settlement blocs, making the national regional priorities plan a major expansion of permanent settlements. However, the Prime Minister reacted by declaring that nothing is permanent until final status talks have been concluded. The Palestinian Authority has reportedly considered responding by issuing a directive to prohibit Palestinians from working in West Bank settlements...

D. East Jerusalem settlements

27. The initial observation is to take note of the original effort to persuade the Government of Israel to place a temporary ban on all settlement growth, including East Jerusalem. To include East Jerusalem would have demonstrated at least some openness to allowing the Palestinians to look forward to a state with Jerusalem as its capital. To persist with “natural growth,” especially when linked with the West Bank freeze, the accelerated rate of house demolitions and evictions and the denial of residency rights to Palestinians, seems to convey an unwillingness on the part of Israel to include any provision for a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem in a negotiated end to the conflict. This impression is strengthened by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s announcement that his office, as well as municipal authorities, would henceforth have to approve demolition orders...

28. Israelis argue that the eviction of Palestinian occupants was to restore the homes of Jews that had been seized during the period 1948–1967 when East Jerusalem was occupied and administered by Jordan. Yet in 2009 more Palestinians were stripped of their residency rights than in any year between 1967 and 2007. In the course of the year, according to Israeli figures, 4,577 Palestinians were deprived of residency status. Palestinians interpret this pattern as an effort to alter the demographic balance in East Jerusalem so as to strengthen Israeli claims to the whole of Jerusalem. There are now approximately 200,000 Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem, which brings the respective populations in Jerusalem to about 65 per cent Jewish (500,000) as compared to 35 per cent Palestinian (250,000).

I’ve just made a report to the U.N. which argues that the prolonged occupation combined with the expansion of the settlements amounts now to de facto annexation. There’s no longer just temporary legitimate occupation after 43 years. Israel has been establishing more or less permanent settlements throughout the whole of occupied Palestine. It is more realistic to look at it as a situation of de facto annexation, de jure occupation. So you have this tension between what is the factual reality and what is the supposed legal situation. At the present time I’m very sceptical [whether] inter-governmental diplomacy can achieve any significant result. And the best hope for the Palestinians is what I call a legitimacy war, similar to the anti-apartheid campaign in the late-1980s and 1990s that was so effective in isolating and undermining the authority of the apartheid government.

But Gaza is morally far worse [than Rwanda, Srebenica and Darfur], although mass death has not yet resulted. It is far worse because the international community is watching the ugly spectacle unfold while some of its most influential members actively encourage and assist Israel in its approach to Gaza. Not only the United States, but also the European Union, are complicit, as are such neighbors as Egypt and Jordan apparently motivated by their worries that Hamas is somehow connected with their own problems associated with the rising strength of the Muslim Brotherhood within their own borders. It is helpful to recall that the liberal democracies of Europe paid homage to Hitler at the 1936 Olympic Games, and then turned away tens of thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. I am not suggesting that the comparison should be viewed as literal, but to insist that a pattern of criminality associated with Israeli policies in Gaza has actually been supported by the leading democracies of the 21st century.

Richard Falk is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on "the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967"

After winning the Palestinian elections, Hamas was castigated as a terrorist organization that had not renounced violence against Israel and had refused to recognize the Jewish state as a legitimate political entity. In fact, the behavior and outlook of Hamas is quite different. From the outset of its political Hamas was ready to work with other Palestinian groups, especially Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas, to establish a ‘unity’ government. More than this, their leadership revealed a willingness to move toward an acceptance of Israel’s existence if Israel would in turn agree to move back to its 1967 borders, implementing finally unanimous Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.

Even more dramatically, Hamas proposed a ten-year truce with Israel, and went so far as to put in place a unilateral ceasefire that lasted for eighteen months, and was broken only to engage in rather pathetic strikes mainly taking place in response to Israeli violent provocations in Gaza. As Efraim Halevi, former head of Israel’s Mossad was reported to have said, ‘What Isreal needs from Hamas is an end to violence, not diplomatic recognition.’ And this is precisely what Hamas offered and what Israel rejected.

The Israeli attacks on Gaza and the Hamas resistance crossed the line between lawful combat and war crimes.

These two sides should not be viewed as equally responsible for the recent events. Israel initiated the Gaza campaign without adequate legal foundation or just cause, and was responsible for causing the overwhelming proportion of devastation and the entirety of civilian suffering. Israeli reliance on a military approach to defeat or punish Gaza was intrinsically “criminal”, and as such demonstrative of both violations of the law of war and the commission of crimes against humanity.

...There are a variety of alleged war crimes associated with Israeli battlefield practices. These charges, based on evidence collected by human rights groups, include IDF firing at a variety of civilian targets, instances where Israeli military personnel denied medical aid to wounded Palestinians, and others where ambulances were prevented from reaching their destinations. There are also documented claims of 20 occasions on which Israeli soldiers were seen firing at women and children carrying white flags. And there are various allegations associated with the use of phosphorus bombs in residential areas of Gaza, as well as legal complaints about the use of a new cruel weapon, known as DIME, that explodes with such force that it rips body parts to pieces.

The foundational issue [is whether Israel’s attacks on Gaza were] in any legal sense “defensive” in character in the first place? An inquiry into the surrounding circumstances shows an absence of any kind of defensive necessity: a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that had been in effect since 19 July 2008 had succeeded in reducing cross-border violence virtually to zero; Hamas consistently offered to extend the ceasefire, even to a longer period of ten years; the breakdown of the ceasefire is not primarily the result of Hamas rocket fire, but came about mainly as a result of an Israeli air attack on 4 November that killed six Hamas fighters in Gaza.

...There were no grounds for claiming the right of self-defence as Israel was not the object of a Hamas attack, and diplomatic alternatives to force existed and seemed credible, and their good-faith reliance was legally obligatory. On this basis the focus of legal debate should not be upon whether Israeli force was disproportionate. Of course it was. The focus should be on whether the Israeli attacks were a prohibited, non-defensive use of force under the UN charter, amounting to an act of aggression, and as such constituting a crime against peace. At Nuremberg after the second world war, surviving Nazi leaders were charged with this crime, which was described in the judgment as “the supreme crime” encompassing the others.