The Australian Publishes a Hit Piece on Richard Falk, Derides D. R. Griffin’s “barking” theories

None so blind as a UN rights expert

David Aaronovitch | April 18, 2008

I WOULD define a moment of double respect as being when, say, the Pope addresses both houses of Congress or - as happened again last week - when that great institution the BBC quotes an expert from that even greater institution, the UN.

The official in question was also the professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, Richard Falk, and his chosen subject was Israel, so I bowed slightly, turned the tap off and put down my razor to hear what he had been saying.

The gist of it was this: whereas Falk's outgoing predecessor as investigator into Israeli conduct, on behalf of the UN Human Rights Council, had only compared Israel to apartheid South Africa, the new man had gone one better and compared it with Nazi Germany. Actually, he'd done this some time ago, before being appointed, but now, of course, his view mattered more. "UN expert stands by Nazi comments" was the headline on the BBC News website.

For various reasons Israelis take badly to being compared with the people who attempted to eradicate Jewish life in Europe and I understood Falk's remarks to have been provocative, as he admitted.

He had made them, he explained, to wake the US "from its torpor". Speaking about Gaza, Falk said that only the sensitivity of Jewish people prevented the parallel being observed more widely.

"If this kind of situation had existed, for instance, in the manner in which China was dealing with Tibet or the Sudanese government was dealing with Darfur, I think there would be no reluctance to make that comparison," he said.

In international terms, this is odd. The body for whom Falk will soon begin work (work that is hardly necessary since he already knows exactly what he thinks before undertaking a moment's UN-authorised monitoring) is famous for its excoriation of Israel and its comparative silence over Tibet and Darfur. Kofi Annan criticised them for it before his departure, Ban Ki-moon criticised them for it on his arrival. All to no avail. The council's website begins with a page entitled Highlights, on which only one country's human rights violations are mentioned by name. And it isn't Andorra.

So what did the 40-plus members of the council see in Falk? As far as I can tell his attraction lies in the following. He is American, he is Jewish and, more deliciously in light of the first two, he blames Israel for just about everything, as opposed to those who (rightly, in my opinion) blame it for quite a lot. This, for example, is Falk in 2002, on the second intifada: "Palestinian resistance gradually ran out of military options and suicide bombers appeared as the only means still available by which to inflict sufficient harm on Israel so that the struggle could go on."

There are three problems with this analysis. The first is that suicide bombing began in Israel in 1994, when Hamas saw the Oslo peace process as threatening to succeed. Second, the suicide bombs were obviously utterly counterproductive in terms of procuring peace and indeed helped to destroy the Israeli peace movement. And, third, other resistances (Tibet, Darfur?) seem to have avoided the only means of suicide bombing aimed at civilians: family restaurants, buses, schools, discos and groups of teenagers, to be more specific.

For Falk "Israel was mainly responsible". It was transparently this political position that led to him being appointed to his job; not his expertise or his open-mindedness. Neither was it his common sense, as we now know. In my library of conspiriana are several books by American theologian David Ray Griffin, intellectual guru of the "Bush blew up the twin towers" movement. Griffin believes that no plane hit the Pentagon (despite hundreds of people seeing it) and that the World Trade Centre was brought down by a controlled demolition. There isn't a single point of alleged fact on which Griffin's barking theory hasn't been demolished. And there isn't a single volume of Griffin that doesn't carry Falk's endorsement.

This journey reaches its depressing climax in a chapter written by Falk for Griffin's 9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out. Following on from the pseudo-scientific blah about the heat at which steel bends (all of which stuff Falk describes as possessing "high credibility") the UN expert-official opines that part of the evidence that there was conspiracy is that so many people say there wasn't. Or in intellectualese: "Momentous suspicious events bearing on the legitimacy of the process of governance in the US have been consistently shielded from mainstream inquiry by being reinscribed as the wild fantasies of 'conspiracy theorists' ... The management of suspicion is itself suspicious." As you can see, because I believe that Falk, like Griffin, has taken leave of what remained of his senses, this column is part of the sinister plot.

Well, we'll have to cope because there is something bigger at stake. It's this: let's say, for one moment, that the objective of the Human Rights Council was to improve human rights in, let's further say, the occupied territories. Would you employ someone who has made utterances that ensure that all of Israeli public opinion - including that part critical of its Government - would unite 100 per cent to resist him? Of course you wouldn't.

The implication of this logic is simple. The UN Human Rights Council doesn't give a toss about the human rights of the Palestinians in the sense of wanting them upheld. Its majority is far more interested in using Israel as a stick to beat the US with or - in the case of Islamic states - as a bogeyman to damp down domestic discontent.

But what is even more amazing is that some Western countries agree to play this game. Three weeks ago the Swiss, using a glossy brochure, persuaded the council by 40 votes to seven to elect Jean Ziegler to its advisory committee. Ziegler is an apologist for Fidel Castro and Muammar Gaddafi, a former associate of Ethiopian dictator Haile Mariam Mengistu, a defender of Robert Mugabe (who, he said, had "history and morality with him"), a visitor to Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong-il, and an admirer of French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy.

Do I need to add that he is also an outspoken critic of US imperialism and of Israel? I invite - and would enjoy reading - the Swiss ambassador's defence of his country's nomination, but it's time to draw a conclusion. I believe in the UN, but we must stop regarding it as though it were some kind of moral arbiter, doing right in a world of wrong. Because, unfortunately, the term UN expert means neither good nor expert. It can mean warped and stupid.

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RECLAIM AUSTRALIA IS DOOMED

Although I agree with many of their ideas, the forces reigned against RAM are too great, violent, statist and reactionary for them to remain a non-political, broad based, multi-ethnic, community protest group for much longer. The Left and their Antifa nihilist fellow travelers are already pushing them towards the extreme Right, by calling them racists and Islamophobes and so on. Whilst the extreme Right have aligned themselves with RAM. With fascists of the Left and Right pressuring them they will not be able to remain beyond the Left-Right divide and will inevitably move to the Right - the extreme Right. Which is already happening. A development which will alienate decent Australians of all ethnic backgrounds many of whom currently support them.

The RAM leadership have already established open alliances with the Patriotic Front (the ape in the photograph is a Patriot Front supporter at a recent Richmond demonstration) Australia First and Golden Dawn, a Greek neo-Nazi party. Members of these collectivist groups are currently attending RAM demonstrations all over Australia.

There is a real need in Australia to establish a political movement beyond the Left-Right divide and their vested interests, a movement that questions the current direction Australia is heading i.e. the direction the Left/Right and their extremes would like to take it; that questions the efficacy of state sponsored multiculturalism, as opposed to a proper, non-discriminatory immigration policy; that questions the validity of political correctness; that is politically neutral, anti-war and pro environment; that is opposed to all collectivists ideologies (fascisms of the Left and Right); that would dismantle the power pyramids of corporations and banks and their ability to impact on government; that would dissolve all anti-terror laws and all laws that impose on the rights and freedom of the individual and the people.

(The ape in the photograph is a Patriot Front supporter at a recent Richmond demonstration)

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/reclaim-australia-rally-set-for-sydney-on-sunday-20150718-gifb9s.html

http://australiafirstparty.net/news/reclaiming-australia-queensland-senate-campaign/

By Eugene Donnini on 2015 07 26 - 15:36:56
From the entry 'Dylann Roof: soldier in a new race war or just a pawn in the game?'.

Hello there I am so thrilled I found your web site, I really found you by error, while I was searching on Digg for something else, Anyways I am here now and would just like to say thanks for a incredible post and a all round thrilling blog (I also love the theme/design), I don韙 have time to go through it all at the minute but I have bookmarked it and also included your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read a lot more, Please do keep up the great work.

By Prova a Adidas Neutro Originals Nizza Nero Giallo on 2015 07 20 - 08:41:30
From the entry 'Statism, the greater good and the big lie'.

I second Keith’s assertion that Mike Holt from Restore Australia is very much a fake. He bangs on about Halaal being a scam and money maker for Islam (and no I don’t support Halaal whatsoever), but makes excuses for its counterpart Kosher as being a somehow legitimate. Double standards? When I confronted him about this fact he went off on a convoluted tirade about Israel being some sort of “Bastion of Democracy” in the middle east…Really!, I will leave that one up to the readers to decide on. I found that MH came across as disingenuous to say the least.

By Citizen Scorn on 2015 07 19 - 07:33:43
From the entry 'Restore Australia!'.

Without doubt, TNR is one of the best, if not the best alternative news source on the net. Which doesn’t mean Herewood is always right. His job, I believe, is to present the facts as he sees them as an objectively as possible, without fear or favor. For this, he has my respect and support. But I believe he needs to be careful and to think a little deeper about the problems of “racism,” in Australia. He has labelled the Reclaim Australia Movement as racist. I’m wondering if his objectivity is a little weak on this point, a little without foundation.

Of course all political movements have its fringe groups and individuals. We make a distinction between, for example, a Muslim and a fundamentalist Muslim (Islamist), and by so doing we don’t claim that all Muslims are blood thirsty fanatics. If its good for the Muslims, then its good for RAM, which is bound to attract a few lunatics and real racists. But to brand the entire movement as “racist” is wrong; it is the same ploy that is used by the mainstream media and its left-wing, establishment Marxist boot boys.

One of the first things I noticed when i attended a RAM rally recently were the amount of non-white people in attendance, including Aboriginals. In fact the main banner of RAM contains an Australian flag and an Aboriginal flag. Speakers at their rallies have included Jews, Arabs, Indians, Aboriginals, Chinese and so on. What does this tell you? Is this really a fascist-Nazi-racist movement whose stated aim are the eradication and exclusion of other cultures, in place of some sort of Aussie white Reich, or is this just propaganda that is being propagated by the left for their own political interests. Consequently, we all know where the culmination of their politics have led, historically speaking, which are to the imposition of terror and dictatorships.

We can be thankful for small mercies, in terms of the Left, which today mostly tends to attract collectivists, establishmentarians and the privileged sons and daughters of the upper bourgeoisie, who seems to share one thing in common, nativity….

By Eugene on 2015 07 18 - 16:03:54
From the entry 'Dylann Roof: soldier in a new race war or just a pawn in the game?'.

Mike Holt from Restore Australia is very much a fake. He hasn’t even been citizen for but a few years. But, he makes out like he was born there. ALSO - this guy spent 30 years in Thailand working shady businesses. I would wager that his primary purpose in being an activist is that he wants to make money off selling merchandise.

By Keith on 2015 07 17 - 20:51:15
From the entry 'Restore Australia!'.

good to see you putting out some new shows heraward

freely the banana girl is to a certain extent a troll, as is her boyfriend durian rider. they have been trolling the fitness community on youtube for some time… and yes they are extreme but they are also trolls. They use their trolling to spread their message. currently, another dude called vegangains is trolling the fitness community as well.

i am a vegetarian, and it was seeing this documentary on the pork industry that started me on the vegetarian path. for anyone interested, its pretty off the charts disturbing and its australian as well. its pretty much made by dudes breaking into pork farms and filming what they find

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KArL5YjaL5U

Would the world be better if people cared where their food came from? probably, they might then care about other things too

do you become a better person if you dont eat meat? i feel like a better person mainly because animals aren’t being hurt because of me. i dont feel humans have to eat meat really… or at least not much. How can you watch that documentary on pork, know that that is pretty much whats going on and turn a blind eye to it? I think its basic empathy and just saying well ‘i like bacon so yeah’ is in my opinion wrong and i can see freleys point of view to an extent. In my opinion, at least these people believe in something. i see my money as my vote, henceforth im ethical as to what i do with it. free range eggs became mainstream for exactly this reason… although im pretty sure woolies and coles lobbied the state to change the definition of the word ‘free range’ at some point. I dont eat beef because the amount of resources that go into growing a cow are pretty crazy. Think about how much grass that cow needs to eat before it is harvested and how much space it requires. think of how many vegies you could grow in the same space with the same amount of water. lamb? comon, think about what your doing here… but that being said i think most vegans are total loons. People like freeley should be advocating for the destruction of lions and tigers, as lions and tigers murder other animals in truly horrific style. if we humans are smart enough to not harm animals, then we should be stopping the animals that harm other animals from existing. Freeley also kills birds when she flies in aeroplanes so she is a hypocrite.

feminism is one of the biggest problems in society today and although there is some valid historical basis to it, the liberation of the human female from their biology is in my opinion largely a product of the technological advance of humans. sufferagettes where never machine gunned on the streets, unlike the men that where drafted and sent off to war to die just a few years earlier. as technology has advanced, women have advanced as well, however now its going way too far and is pretty blatantly anti male in many respects. i view feminism in its modern context as a tool of the social marxists that really isnt doing society a great deal of good at this time. its screwing up gender dynamics and is wrecking women and men for each other. i see it as low frequency, lowest common denominator idiocy, just like a lot of the the race baiting ‘is this racist’ stuff getting around that is being perpetuated pretty much as a distraction, divide and conquer strategy by the power elite. idiots love this kind of bicker and beef… it would be funny if it wasn’t so serious

anyway

I agree with steven friar. gods a maniac

good show… keep making them

By r0Kb3B0p on 2015 07 14 - 21:05:32
From the entry 'Addictions, obsessions, fanaticisms and distractions'.

Really truthfull.

By OZE on 2015 07 07 - 16:56:36
From the entry 'Defending your personal health choices'.

Yeah sure authority aware.

By OZE on 2015 07 07 - 16:28:55
From the entry 'What is the future of Australia?'.

Stay tuned for more rules here as usually is the case!!!

By OZE on 2015 07 07 - 16:21:50
From the entry 'Mass media disinformation and brainwashing dissected'.

Almost two months since the last broadcast! How the hell can you expect people to donate when you don’t broadcast? Looks like the ship of truth has sprung a leak. This broadcast has been part of my life almost since its inception…it is one of the few alternative news sources that hasn’t gone off the deep end, by dilution credible information with crap e.g. Fairdinkum Radio and Info Wars…Pittard started FR with some incredibly interesting material, but then he flipped…Today he sounds like a fundamentalist preacher, the Christian equivalent to a Fanatical Islamist. As an atheist, I think he’s really ###### up a potentially good show. As for Info Wars, all they would have to do to improve is dump Alex Jones, what a shit-for-brains. I reckon Jones and Pittard are allowed to proliferate, because they’re so stupid and harmless. I suppose they have some entertainment value, and along with David Icke are living examples of how low the alternative media has sunk. Truth News Radio is, or should I say was, way ahead of them all ahead of them all in terms of credibility How sad that its come to this.

By Eugene on 2015 06 28 - 17:28:56
From the entry 'Introducing Internet.org: Mark Zuckerberg's free 'private' internet which will soon be rolled out to 4 billion+ people'.

The Australian Publishes a Hit Piece on Richard Falk, Derides D. R. Griffin’s “barking” theories

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