TheLittleTwentieth – Renowned Papers Edition, AI Infused

Local sources from Ireland: Peoples Dispatch, The Guardian.
UK coverage: Peoples Dispatch.

Craig Mokhiber, a senior UN Human Rights official, recently resigned due to the organization’s failure to address the genocide in Gaza and Israel’s apartheid policies against Palestinians. In an interview with Vijay Prashad, Mokhiber discussed how the UN has consistently let down the people of Palestine and moved away from a principled, law-based approach. He highlighted the influence of countries like the United States in this shift. Mokhiber finds hope in the global demonstrations in solidarity with Palestine and against Israeli genocide.

Mokhiber wrote in a letter to the UN High Commissioner in Geneva, Volker Turk, that the UN had failed to prevent previous genocides against the Tutsis in Rwanda, Muslims in Bosnia, the Yazidi in Iraqi Kurdistan, and the Rohingya in Myanmar. He said that the UN was “failing again” in its duty to prevent what he categorizes as genocide of Palestinian civilians in Gaza under Israeli bombardment, and that the US, UK, and much of Europe were “wholly complicit in the horrific assault”.

Mokhiber also called for the effective end to the state of Israel, saying: “We must support the establishment of a single, democratic secular state in all of historic Palestine, with equal rights for Christians, Muslims, and Jews, and, therefore, the dismantling of the deeply racist, settler-colonial project and an end to apartheid across the land.”

The UN spokesperson in New York sent a statement about Mokhiber, saying: “The views in his letter made public today are his personal views.” Reaction to Mokhiber’s outspoken departure from such a prominent UN position was mixed. Louis Charbonneau, the UN director at Human Rights Watch, said that Mokhiber had made a powerful argument against double standards in the stance of the world body. Anne Bayefsky, who directs Touro College’s Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust in New York, accused Mokhiber on social media of “overt antisemitism”.

Mokhiber’s resignation and letter bring to light the UN’s failure to address the genocide in Gaza and Israel’s apartheid policies against Palestinians, and the role of countries like the United States in this shift. His call for the establishment of a single, democratic secular state in all of historic Palestine, with equal rights for Christians, Muslims, and Jews, has sparked mixed reactions from the international community. It remains to be seen how the UN will respond to the situation in the coming days.