THE UN'S DOUBLE-STANDARD ON POSTPONED DEBATES

UN Watch has pointed to a hypocritical double-standard by the UN council on their persecution of Israel for alleged human rights. First, Israel requested a postponement to a meeting and missed one for January 29, for which they were attacked. But what happens when Richard Falk is the focus?

Yet it now turns out that, at the exact same time as the above media storm was blowing, the council was taking an altogether different approach toward a similar request, made by one of its own top UN officials, to postpone a debate on Israel’s alleged violations.

UN Watch has discovered that the council quietly posted a notice that their own Palestine monitor, the infamous Richard Falk, who was kicked out of Human Rights Watch in response to our campaign, will be skipping a scheduled council appearance, postponing his report by several months.

Falk, a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, was scheduled to present his report on Monday, March 18 — on the special day against Israel that is a permanent feature of every session — at the same time as the council’s fact-finding mission on Israeli settlements presents its new report. Instead, we now learn that Falk’s report has been postponed until June. No reasons were given.

Even though the report’s postponement means that a scheduled council debate on Israel’s alleged violations — supposedly a vital instrument of justice on an urgent situation — will now be deferred by several months, suddenly there is no outrage, no objections of principle, and no questions asked by the council and its defenders.

Apparently, the council’s anti-Israel lobby was concerned that Falk’s scheduled diatribe would be drowned out by the competing report on settlements, and so arbitrarily decided to alter the council’s schedule in order to space out their propaganda vehicles in separate sessions.

What this says is that the UN clearly still supports Falk, and would surely back him even more if criticism against him hadn't come up. They really are a pure disgrace.