“Palestinians have been betrayed by the international community over the years”

Interview with Richard Falk*, UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories

thk. On the occasion of the eighth session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, the newly appointed Special Rapporteur on Palestine and Other Occupied Territories, addressed the council for the first time and gave his eagerly-awaited inaugural speech. In his explanations Falk referred to the report of his predecessor John Dugard (see below) who during the last four years had reported very frankly on the catastrophic conditions in the territories occupied by Israel and had now handed over the mandate to Richard Falk. Falk, who himself is a Jewish US citizen, had been attacked by Israel and the US prior to his election as a Special Rapporteur. However, he was given the mandate despite harsh resistance against his appointment.
In his first speech to the Human Rights Council he assured that he would take great effort to improve the living conditions in the occupied territories and to end the conflict. At the same time he announced an extension of his mandate by saying that he would also investigate in the human rights violations of Palestinians towards Israel. In the ensuing discussion he made it clear that he was going to differentiate between the occupiers and the occupied; By no means must victims be made offenders.
After his speech and the ensuing discussion, Current Concerns was given the opportunity for an interview with Richard Falk about the situation in the Middle East, Palestine and the reasons for the extension of his mandate.

A peace plan for the Middle East

Current Concerns: The conflict between Palestine an Israel is not the only crisis in this region. How is it possible to end the crisis; is there any solution for this area at all?
Richard Falk: That is a far-reaching question because the situation has gradually worsened especially during the Bush presidency in this region and virtually the entire region is now a war zone. I think the best antidote for this reality – if one is trying to find a constructive approach – would be to create a regional security framework in which there are mutual assurances of non-aggression and peaceful resolution of conflicts given by all the governments of the region. To make such an undertaking a success, it would also depend upon the US either endorsing this regional approach or participating directly in some way in the arrangement as a non-regional participant along with others. Perhaps, Russia, the US, the EU could participate, and also China and India. So I think that’s one worthwhile initiative. Another would be to get rid of all weapons of mass destruction in the region including the Israeli nuclear-weapons arsenal. I think that such a step would go along with dealing with the Iran-Iraq problems that have been used in recent years as a pretext for aggressive war. I see those first two steps, especially if coordinated with a withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, meaning a total and genuine withdrawal and not merely a ‘redeployment’; also without permanent military bases of any kind. Any kind of military presence would seem to me unacceptable. On the basis of those three policy shifts I think a more balanced approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict could need to be forthcoming. I think if those four things were to happen, or even started happening, there would be hope that the region could be restabilized. And there may be certain objective conditions that are favourable to this kind of approach including safeguarding the prize of oil and avoidance of spreading and deepening of the US recession to the entire global economy. If one thinks rationally about the future, the first objective should be to create stability and order in the Middle East. This requires achieving justice for the peoples of the region starting with overcoming the plight of the Palestinians and ending the occupation of Iraq.

“Is Israel at all interested in reducing the violence?”

You are the new special rapporteur on Palestine, so we want to focus on this conflict. How would you describe the conditions, which the Palestinians live in?
I should say I can respond in two different ways. As a special rapporteur I haven’t really conducted an independent investigation, so I’m not really in a position to comment on the present set of circumstances.  As a concerned citizen I had been long troubled by the suffering of the Palestinian people under this historically unprecedented occupation that has now lasted for more than forty years. In recent months I have felt that there exists a real danger of a humanitarian catastrophe taking place in Gaza particularly as a result of the siege and associated policies pursued by Israel, since Hamas won the elections at the start of 2006. In a sense, these harsh conditions themselves, even if they don’t result in massive deaths and famine, impose such a daily ordeal on the people of Gaza that it is already a catastrophe.
Concern for the fate of the Gazans is not just a worry about the future. It exists as a present reality and the world community has been unforgivably slow to recognize and respond to the seriousness of the situation. Particularly the EU, and even more so the US, have been diverted by the Hamas issue from addressing the suffering of  the people of Gaza and the Palestinians generally. I find it shocking that there has been so little attention given to the repeated Hamas offers of a long-term cease-fire, along with their efforts to eliminate the violence and the violent interaction of the two peoples. Hamas, in my understanding, even established and largely maintained a unilateral cease-fire during the first year after the January 2006 elections despite a series of Israeli provocations. During this period Israel continued to engage in targeted assassinations and mounted military incursions on Palestinian territories. It makes one wonder whether Israel is at all interested in curtailing the violence that is associated with its so-called security policy being imposed on the occupied territories.

A state for the Palestinians

How can one help in this situation to make things better? My question refers to your position as the special rapporteur on Palestine. What do you think is your task concerning this issue?
I think it can and must get better for the Palestinian people. It is hard to imagine people enduring the present reality much longer. And usually in a situation of this kind if it doesn’t get better, it gets worse. In this sense a mere continuation of the present structure of occupation would itself produce a deteriorating humanitarian situation for Gaza and generally, for occupied Palestine. At the same time it is almost impossible to assume a significant adjustment in Israeli security policy without a real change in the political leadership in Israel or as a result of some kind of significant political change in the approach taken by the US Government. Neither development seems at all likely at the present time.
Unfortunately, the current American presidential candidates seem unable to put forward innovative positions on the Israel-Palestine conflict. The political climate makes American politicians feel that in order to be credible they have to demonstrate a 110 percent level of support for Israel, whatever it does. And this is very discouraging in terms of what we can expect in the near future from Washington. To avoid succumbing to despair and cynicism, we should take note of some surprises in recent history that exceeded all reasonable expectations. Non-violently ending the apartheid system in South Africa was a utopian project until it happened. A white racist elite ruled the country with an iron hand. It looked as if it would never change this approach unless it was to be defeated through an armed struggle. Thereby it came to a point where it no longer could sustain apartheid. What was achieved quite remarkably was to persuade the pro-apartheid leadership of the country to accept a peaceful defeat of apartheid accompanied by moves toward multi-racial constitutional democracy.
There are Israelis who are already thinking and working along this line, inspired by the South African experience. I believe that a part of the role of this mandate is to encourage people both in Israel and in the US and in Europe and elsewhere to try to understand that it really is in the long-term interests of both peoples to find the courage, the wisdom, and empathy to commit themselves to attaining a peaceful future. It needs to be understood that the longer the construction and extension of Israeli settlements on the West Bank and in and around Jerusalem goes on – as well as other related activities such as building an expensive network of interconnections between the settlement communities in the Westbank and pre-1967 Israel – the more difficult it becomes to envision, much less implement a two states solution. There seems little doubt that Israel’s own efforts to establish facts on the ground over the last 40+ years have undermined what is still pronounced as their vision of a peaceful future. A Palestinian state cannot be a token reality if peace is to be achieved. It must represent, at the very least, a truly sovereign state that exists in geographic unity on the entirety of the West Bank and shares in the administration of Jerusalem.

International law remains the foundation

We talked about the situation of Palestine and the possibility for a peace process. My question is now: What do you think about Israel and the respect for international law and humanitarian law as a prerequisite for peace?
I think that the issue is complicated and important at the same time. It is complicated because Israel has presented itself as a democratic society, a political system that is very committed to the rule of law. And the legitimacy of the Israeli state depends on its adherence to constitutional democracy. In the conflict with the Palestinians the Israeli leadership is aware that international law is on the Palestinian side with respect to the main contested issues (withdrawal from the land occupied in 1967, the status of the settlements, the claims to Jerusalem, the rights of Palestinian refugees). To date the US Government has supported Israel in all diplomatic negotiations by insisting upon the exclusion of international law. This amounts to a way of suggesting that a solution to the conflict should not be based on the relative rights of the two sides but rather on their relative power. For this reason bargaining between the two sides should take full account of the realities on the ground and not pay any attention to the terms of a just peace that either the United Nations has endorsed or international law prescribes.
This attitude has had a number of detrimental effects. It has made it impossible to achieve an understanding of peace that is acceptable to the Palestinians. It has also made the Palestinians feel that having international law or the UN on their side is of no use. They still suffer, the bodies keep piling up, and their territorial domain is being continuously squeezed to create even more facts on the ground. Cumulatively, this experience conveys a message to most Palestinians that the only way to get results and challenge an oppressive situation is by recourse to force. Palestinians look particularly at the Hezbollah success in getting Israel to withdraw substantially from southern Lebanon and compare that to their own situation. The international community and the US particularly are sending the message that international law doesn’t help the weak in any practical way. It helps the powerful and the oppressors by discrediting resistance to oppressive circumstances.

Extension of the mandate

In your speech to the council you mentioned the extension of the mandate. Everybody wants to know why you propose this extension. What is the reason, what are the ideas behind this and how does this correspond with international law and the human rights?
I think there is both a principal reason and a pragmatic or practical reason. The principal reason is that an understanding of the argument about security and the issue of the violations of the occupation policy depend on evaluating the Israeli legal arguments claiming security as a justification for their approach. To deal with this central issue depends on a consideration of the extent to which Palestinian behavior makes it legal for Israel to be doing what it is doing.
This kind of balanced inquiry does not suggest any symmetry between the occupier and the occupied or between the victims and their oppressors. In fact a balanced inquiry exposes the real structure of the asymmetries in a more credible way, in a more effective way, and gives a fair response to the claims of the occupying power. The practical reason is that it has been too easy for apologists on behalf of Israel and of the US to point to this one-sidedness of the formal mandate as discrediting to both the Human Rights Council, and the UN more generally, and to this mandate in particular. Harping on the one-sidedness of the mandate has been a very effective way of avoiding the substance of the Palestinian complaints. This criticism of the mandate has succeeded in focusing far too much attention on this procedural issue bearing on the formal scope of the inquiry. I feel that from both principled and practical perspectives it was appropriate to raise this matter at the outset of my appointment. I knew that to do so would be to pose a delicate issue, but I acknowledge that I did not realize beforehand how complicated and difficult it would be to adopt my recommendation.

We congratulate you on your election as a special rapporteur for Palestine. Resistance by the US and Israel was enormous so we all were surprised in a positive way that you were appointed.
Yes, I was really surprised. I was fully aware that Israel and the US were actively opposing my election, and were very upset about the existence of the mandate and with John Dugard as the most recent holder of the mandate. I have been told that both governments lobbied heavily to get a different kind of person appointed and were angry that these efforts failed, awakening to the fact that I was the choice of the HRC despite their campaign. And so, yes I was surprised.

Thank you very much that you took some time for us. And we wish you success in your very difficult mandate.
Thank you very much for the questions, thank you. I want to try to do the best I can for both peoples. The Palestinians particularly have been betrayed by the international community over the years. This betrayal is linked to the unwillingness to accept the special responsibility of the international community that is grounded in the establishment of Palestine as a British mandate after World War I. In a fundamental sense the mandate that I hold is at least a symbolic recognition by the UN System of this responsibility.•

*Richard Falk is a lawyer and economist, Professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton University. Falk has published a number of notable books and essays, he is a member of the Editorial Boards of The Nation and The Progressive and  Chair of the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. In 2001 Falk served on a United Nations Human Rights Inquiry Commission for the Palestinian territories with John Dugard and Kamal Hussein, former foreign minister of Bangladesh. On March 26, 2008, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) appointed Falk to a six-year term as a special rapporteur on Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories. Falk replaces South African professor John Dugard, an expert on apartheid who will leave his post in June 2008.