[Peace-discuss] Israel permitted to humiliate the UN

[C. G. Estabrook]

[This article makes it clear that this event was a calculated public humiliation 
of the UN by the government of Israel. (Saddam Hussein was more respectful of 
the UN.) Would such a thing be possible if there had been a phone call from DC 
saying, "Don't do it"? --CGE]

	Published on Friday, December 19, 2008 by The Guardian/UK
	My Expulsion from Israel
	by Richard Falk

On December 14, I arrived at Ben Gurion airport [1] in Tel Aviv, Israel to carry 
out my UN role as special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories.

I was leading a mission that had intended to visit the West Bank and Gaza to 
prepare a report on Israel's compliance with human rights standards and 
international humanitarian law. Meetings had been scheduled on an hourly basis 
during the six days, starting with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the 
Palestinian Authority, the following day.

I knew that there might be problems at the airport. Israel had strongly opposed 
my appointment a few months earlier and its foreign ministry had issued a 
statement that it would bar my entry if I came to Israel in my capacity as a UN 
representative.

At the same time, I would not have made the long journey from California, where 
I live, had I not been reasonably optimistic about my chances of getting in. 
Israel was informed that I would lead the mission and given a copy of my 
itinerary, and issued visas to the two people assisting me: a staff security 
person and an assistant, both of whom work at the office of the high 
commissioner of human rights in Geneva.

To avoid an incident at the airport, Israel could have either refused to grant 
visas or communicated to the UN that I would not be allowed to enter, but 
neither step was taken. It seemed that Israel wanted to teach me, and more 
significantly, the UN a lesson: there will be no cooperation with those who make 
strong criticisms of Israel's occupation policy.

After being denied entry, I was put in a holding room with about 20 others 
experiencing entry problems. At this point, I was treated not as a UN 
representative, but as some sort of security threat, subjected to an 
inch-by-inch body search and the most meticulous luggage inspection I have ever 
witnessed.

I was separated from my two UN companions who were allowed to enter Israel and 
taken to the airport detention facility a mile or so away. I was required to put 
all my bags and cell phone in a room and taken to a locked tiny room that 
smelled of urine and filth. It contained five other detainees and was an 
unwelcome invitation to claustrophobia. I spent the next 15 hours so confined, 
which amounted to a cram course on the miseries of prison life, including dirty 
sheets, inedible food and lights that were too bright or darkness controlled 
from the guard office.

Of course, my disappointment and harsh confinement were trivial matters, not by 
themselves worthy of notice, given the sorts of serious hardships that millions 
around the world daily endure. Their importance is largely symbolic. I am an 
individual who had done nothing wrong beyond express strong disapproval of 
policies of a sovereign state. More importantly, the obvious intention was to 
humble me as a UN representative and thereby send a message of defiance to the 
United Nations [2].

Israel had all along accused me of bias and of making inflammatory charges 
relating to the occupation of Palestinian territories. I deny that I am biased, 
but rather insist that I have tried to be truthful in assessing the facts and 
relevant law. It is the character of the occupation that gives rise to sharp 
criticism of Israel's approach, especially its harsh blockade of Gaza, resulting 
in the collective punishment of the 1.5 million inhabitants. By attacking the 
observer rather than what is observed, Israel plays a clever mind game. It 
directs attention away from the realities of the occupation, practising 
effectively a politics of distraction.

The blockade of Gaza serves no legitimate Israeli function. It is supposedly 
imposed in retaliation for some Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets that have been 
fired across the border at the Israeli town of Sderot. The wrongfulness of 
firing such rockets is unquestionable, yet this in no way justifies 
indiscriminate Israeli retaliation against the entire civilian population of Gaza.

The purpose of my reports is to document on behalf of the UN the urgency of the 
situation in Gaza and elsewhere in occupied Palestine. Such work is particularly 
important now as there are signs of a renewed escalation of violence and even of 
a threatened Israeli reoccupation.
Before such a catastrophe happens, it is important to make the situation as 
transparent as possible, and that is what I had hoped to do in carrying out my 
mission. Although denied entry, my effort will continue to use all available 
means to document the realities of the Israeli occupation as truthfully as possible.

© 2008 Guardian News and Media Limited

Richard Falk is professor of international law at Princeton University and the 
UN's special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org
URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/19-8