Ex-UN investigator Richard Falk and his wife attack UN Watch

UN Watch BriefingLatest from the United Nations  Vol. 516  |  December 8, 2014

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Ex-UN investigator Richard Falk and his wife attack UN Watch Falk: "I have been the continuous target of a sustained defamation campaign spearheaded by the Zionist UN Watch.... On at least one occasion I was informed that a previous offer of a visiting appointment at an overseas university, Kings College London, was reduced from year-to-year to a single year due to my alleged anti-Semitism"     Richard Falk and his wife, new UN special rapporteur on the right to food Hilal Elver Falk GENEVA, Dec. 8 - For the third time in three months, former UN official Richard Falk has lashed out at UN Watch, this time in an interview that purports to be in the voice of his wife, new UN expert on hunger Hilal Elver Falk, but which appears to have been written by him. Asked by the interviewer from the Moon Magazine why the U.S. condemned her appointment, Elver, who has famously accused Israel of "water apartheid", misleadingly answered by insisting that the U.S. did not vote against her appointment, which is true -- largely because the appointment of numerous experts was a package deal -- but non-responsive to the question asked. Elver claims that "the U.S. government did not oppose my appointment." In fact, the U.S. strongly condemned her appointment, following a UN Watch letter to Ambassador Samantha Power documenting Elver's utter failure to meet the basic requirements of the position. The U.S. slammed Falk's wife for her “lack of relevant experience,” questioned “her readiness for this assignment,” and pointed to her “biased and inflammatory views” which “run counter to the dispassionate professionalism central to the work of a Special Rapporteur.” Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird sent a letter to the UN condemning Elver’s “abysmal judgment.” Elver omitted all of this, and instead accused UN Watch of mounting a "politically motivated publicity campaign" against her. "A small Geneva NGO called UN Watch came out against my appointment, not because of my qualifications, but because I am married to Richard Falk, said Elver. "This NGO consistently and irresponsibly accused my husband of being anti-Semitic, and I was presumed guilty merely as a result of being his wife. I was also falsely alleged to be collaborating with his writings on the Palestine-Israel conflict." The truth is that Elver's original application form was riddled with self-disqualifying answers, non-sequiturs, and spelling mistakes. Her English, as one can also see on YouTube, is very poor and at times incoherent. Curiously, however, while the interviewer claims to have "talked" to Elver, her English is flawless, and also includes all of her husband's usual manipulative arguments.   Falk: 'I Lost Academic Appointment Because of UN Watch"  Richard Falk, the infamous 9/11 Truther and author of the New York Times 1979 op-ed “Trusting Khomeini,” has not received a moment of UN Watch attention once his 6-year term as the UNHRC’s special investigator of “Israel’s violations of the bases and principles of international law” expired, at long last, in June of this year. Yet Falk continues to evince a profound bitterness to UN Watch, the only human rights group at the United Nations that dared to expose his toxic mix of pro-Hamas appeasement, anti-Western invective, support for 9/11 conspiracy theorists and demonization of Israel. Asked in an October interview about obstacles to his UN work, Falk said: "I was very much attacked in a kind of defamatory way by UN Watch and other very extreme Zionist organizations, which tried -- wherever I went, anywhere in the world, they would try to prevent me from speaking and mounted a kind of defamatory campaign, called me an anti-Semite, a leading anti-Semite."  In truth, UN Watch allies in condemning Falk’s poison included UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the U.S., the UK, Canada — and the Palestinian Authority, which famously tried to fire him. For a glimpse into Falk’s numerous statements supporting terrorism against America, the West and Israel, click here. Here is Falk’s tirade against UN Watch, from his September essay on the alleged misuses of anti-Semitism: I do not claim neutrality on these issues. During the past six years, while serving as UN Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine on behalf of the Human Rights Council, I have been the continuous target of a sustained defamation campaign spearheaded by a Zionist-oriented NGO, UN Watch, based in Geneva. I was repeatedly accused of anti-Semitism, and my views on other issues were likewise distorted to create an impression of bizarre judgment. I was called a supporter of terrorism, a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, and the like…  Because of the atmosphere in North America where demonstrating 100%+ support for Israel has become an indispensable ingredient of political credibility, these defamatory attacks were accepted as valid by several public officials who never bothered to check with me or examine my actual views on such controversial topics. As a result I was attacked by such luminaries as the UN Secretary General, two U.S. ambassadors to the UN (Susan Rice, Samantha Powers), Foreign Minister of Canada, among others, and a favorite target for Fox TV and the Murdock [sic] media empire. Additionally, efforts were made to have my lectures cancelled at universities in various places around the world (including McGill and McMaster in Canada, AUB in Beirut, ANU, Melbourne, and Sydney in Australia, Norfolk in the UK, and Princeton, University of Texas, University of Iowa and others in the USA) These universities were warned that unless my campus appearance was cancelled, funding would suffer. On at least one occasion I was informed that a previous offer of a visiting appointment at an overseas university, Kings College London, was reduced from year-to-year to a single year due to my alleged anti-Semitism. Even my wife was defamed by such Zionist zealots who tried to defeat her candidacy in the UN Human Rights Council in 2014 to become Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food. She was accused of writing inflammatory anti-Israeli tracts in collaboration with me, a complete lie as we had never collaborated on this subject-matter, and it was further alleged that she shared my anti-Semitic views, which is a double lie.