The Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that it will not allow the United
Nations official appointed to investigate Israeli-Palestinian human
rights to enter the country, after he stood by comments comparing
Israelis to Nazis.
Richard Falk is scheduled to take up his post with the UN Human Rights
Council in May, but the Foreign Ministry said it will deny Falk a visa
to enter Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, at least until a September
meeting of the council.
At that meeting, Israel intends to ask the council to expand the envoy's
mission to include investigating Palestinian human rights abuses against
Israelis. The mandate currently allows him to monitor only human rights
violations by Israel in the Palestinian territories.
Israel will also express its displeasure with the council's choice of
Falk as investigator. "If he already believes Israel is like the Nazis,
how fair will he be?" said a Foreign Ministry spokesman.
Israel has objected for years to what it perceives as anti-Israel bias
by many UN bodies.
According to a Tuesday posting on the British Broadcasting Corporation's
Web site, Falk defended statements he made last summer equating Israel's
treatment of Palestinians with Nazi treatment of Jews during the
Holocaust. He told BBC News that Israel has been unfairly shielded from
international criticism.
Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis during World War II in an
effort to liquidate all of Europe's Jews. The Foreign Ministry
spokesperson called Falk's comments "unacceptable and, in fact, a little
strange."
"To compare Israel to the Nazis is not just a total falsehood, it's also
a personal insult to everybody," he said, adding that the choice of Falk
is indicative of the Human Rights Council's negative attitude toward
Israel. "Of all the people to be able to appoint, to find somebody who
compares Israel to the Nazis is very bizarre and outrageous," he said.
The council's previous investigator, John Dugard from South Africa,
compared Israeli treatment of Palestinians to apartheid, the
discriminatory policy of the previous white regime in South Africa
toward blacks.
Falk, a professor emeritus at Princeton University, could not be reached
for comment.