When I arrived in Israel as a UN representative I knew there might be problems at the airport. And there were
- Richard Falk
- guardian.co.uk, Friday 19 December 2008 11.30 GMT
On December 14, I arrived at Ben Gurion airport 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.
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.
• Richard Falk is professor of international law at Princeton University and the UN’s special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories
Peace and Justice Post 
We must act to help the people of Gaza
January 7, 2009We have the power
Why we must act to help the people of Gaza, urges JEREMY CORBYN.
SIX HUNDRED dead and 2,500 injured is the current price of Israel’s 11-day onslaught on Gaza. Its blood-stained assault is the culmination of the abject failure of Western strategy in the Middle East since 2005.
That was the year in which the first democratic elections in Palestine for the presidency and assembly were supposed to mark a step on the road towards the recognition of Palestine as an an independent state, with the complete withdrawal by Israel from Gaza and a partial withdrawal in the West Bank.
But the result didn’t go to plan.
While Palestinians elected Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas as president, they handed Hamas a parliamentary majority.
Israel’s response was swift. It rounded up 74 parliamentarians and threw them in jail. Today, 40 remain in custody without charge or any prospect of a trial.
The US and EU, meanwhile, promoted economic and political support for the West Bank while allowing Israel to continue its blockade of Gaza unhindered. It joined Tel Aviv in ritual condemnation of the Hamas leadership.
A ceasefire agreed between Hamas and Israel was respected by the Islamist movement until Israel carried out a major offensive in the West Bank. When Tel Aviv failed to end its siege of Gaza as agreed, the ceasefire was again broken by Hamas.
Normally 450 lorries a day enter the strip bearing essential supplies to sustain Gaza’s 1.5 million population. Under the Israeli blockade, this fell to fewer than 80 lorries a day, helping to create the humanitarian disaster now unfolding in the strip.
Much has been made of attacks using home-made rockets upon Israel and their military impact has been greatly exaggerated. Obviously, it is wrong that they should be fired and that any casualties should be caused. But these attacks are no excuse for 600 air raids and an orgy of killing.
Israel has flouted every UN resolution ever passed concerning the rights of Palestinian people. It has constructed a wall that has been declared illegal by the World Court and it has forced collective punishment on the people of Gaza by controlling all travel and by denying access to the basic necessities of life.
The Israelis are led by President Shimon Peres, a man addicted to office irrespective of the policies of the administration in which he is serving, and the squabbling twins of Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni. They are engaged in a macabre competition to see who can be the most brutal towards the Palestinian people. Theirs is a crude electoral game played with an eye on elections for prime minister next month.
Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu is waiting in the wings. He has a proven record of killing far more people than this and is ready to do battle.
The EU has called for a ceasefire and issued various statements suggesting that Israel ought to halt the bombardment of Gaza as it is wholly disproportionate to the alleged cause for their actions.
However, at no stage has the EU even suggested that there could be any political or diplomatic reaction to Israel’s behaviour. The current bilateral trade agreement between Israel and the EU is due to be upgraded. If Israel is granted associated status, in the past a step on the road towards full EU membership, it will gain even greater access to EU trade and aid.
If any other country anywhere else in the world had behaved in the way that Israel has in the past 11 days, never mind the past 60 years, it would be roundly condemned by every government.
But there is an unspoken bottom line that Israel need fear no retribution for its actions. The US administration has not even called for a ceasefire. George W Bush and Condoleezza Rice have fallen neatly in line with Israel’s depiction that this is a war of equals. Yet this supposed war of equals is being waged by a nuclear-armed power against a largely unarmed Gazan population.
The US, with the support of the British government, has ensured through its security council veto that there has been no ceasefire call from the UN.
Another security council meeting takes place today in New York. The very least that it could do is condemn Israel for the huge loss of civilian life, including the bombing of a UN school in Gaza yesterday, which has reportedly killed at least 40 people.
Next Monday, Foreign Secretary David Miliband will report to the House of Commons on the British government’s participation in the various EU efforts to bring about a ceasefire.
But will he recognise that ordinary public opinion in Britain has been steadily moving in favour of the rights of Palestinian people?
There has been an avalanche of support for the victims of Israel’s behaviour. Support for Jews for Justice for Palestinians has increased, as has the participation of people in demonstrations such as the massive march through London last Sunday and the daily demonstrations at the US embassy.
Ordinary people have been emailing, phoning and faxing their MPs to demand action as they are bombarded with daily images of the carnage in Gaza. Support for Israel in Parliament has been steadily reducing and is now much more limited than in the past.
Not only is the continued oppression of Palestinians appalling for the individuals concerned but it can only lay the foundations for greater conflict in the future.
The time is long past for the rest of the world to unreservedly condemn Israel’s behaviour.
The increasingly militant hardline leadership in Israel must be isolated.
This time, the plight of the Palestinian people will not wait as they are dying in their hundreds and starving in their thousands.
The neighbouring governments that have so far failed to open the crossing points or effectively condemn Israel will soon be feeling the wrath of popular opinion in their own communities.
We often feel a sense of helplessness in these situations. But we can apply force to the political process in Britain and join in the massive numbers of protests and street demonstrations that are being held every day.
For the people of Palestine, in Gaza and the West Bank, it means more than we can know.
There is a national demonstration in London this Saturday January 10. Assemble 12.30pm at Hyde Park Corner. Visit www.palestinecampaign.org for more information on this and other actions.
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Tags:Benjamin Netanyahu, blockade of Gaza, demonstration in London, Hamas, home-made rockets, Israel and UN resolutions, israel has rejected every UN resolution, Israel in Gaza, Mahmoud Abbas, oppression of Palestinians, Palestine, President Shimon Peres, United States
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