Craig Mokiber resigned from his senior position at the UN on October 30th. In a final letter to his boss, Volker Turk, High Commissioner for Human Rights, he praised the UN’s work in human rights in other conflicts, but expressed anger and frustration over its inability to offer the same protection to Palestinians. He offered a radical 10 point program on what the UN and the international community needs to do. Read more…
Mokiber’s powerful but anguished letter, based on years of experience and frustration, calls out Israel, US and Eu for hiding behind the “joke” that is the two state solution.
“I write at a moment of great anguish for the world, including for many of our colleagues. Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the Organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it,” he writes.
Mokiber anticipated that the dramatic Hamas attack, which has put the Palestinian issue back on the table, would also lead to renewed calls from the West for a “two state solution”, a solution which he calls “illusory”. Only this week Prime Minister Trudeau again came back to the idea of a “two state solution”. It has been a long time Canadian policy, Trudeau pointed out, ignoring the fact that Canada’s “support’ for it has never entailed imposing any consequences on Israel for flouting it.
Mokiber’s full letter, on UN stationery is available HERE and is worth reading completely . An excerpt, with his ten point suggestion is reprinted below. (Yellow highlighting added by CTIP). It makes for interesting reading.
- Legitimate action: First, we in the UN must abandon the failed (and largely disingenuous) Oslo paradigm, its illusory two-state solution, its impotent and complicit Quartet, and its subjugation of international law to the dictates of presumed political expediency. Our positions must be
unapologetically based on international human rights and international law. - Clarity of Vision: We must stop the pretense that this is simply a conflict over land or religion between two warring parties and admit the reality of the situation in which a disproportionately powerful state is colonizing, persecuting, and dispossessing an indigenous population on the basis of their ethnicity.
- One State based on human rights: 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.
- Fighting Apartheid: We must redirect all UN efforts and resources to the struggle against apartheid, just as we did for South Africa in the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s.
- Return and Compensation: We must reaffirm and insist on the right to return and full compensation for all Palestinians and their families currently living in the occupied territories, in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and in the diaspora across the globe.
- Truth and Justice: We must call for a transitional justice process, making full use of decades of accumulated UN investigations, enquiries, and reports, to document the truth, and to ensure accountability for all perpetrators, redress for all victims, and remedies for documented injustices.
- Protection: We must press for the deployment of a well-resourced and strongly mandated UN protection force with a sustained mandate to protect civilians from the river to the sea.
- Disarmament: We must advocate for the removal and destruction of Israel’s massive stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, lest the conflict lead to the total destruction of the region and, possibly, beyond.
- Mediation: We must recognize that the US and other western powers are in fact not credible mediators, but rather actual parties to the conflict who are complicit with Israel in the violation of Palestinian rights, and we must engage them as such.
- Solidarity: We must open our (UN) doors wide to the legions of Palestinian, Israeli, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian human rights defenders who are standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine and their human rights and stop the unconstrained flow of Israel lobbyists to the offices of UN leaders, where they advocate for continued war, persecution, apartheid, and impunity, and smear our human rights defenders for their principled defense of Palestinian rights.
Shortly after his resignation, (and before the South African filing on Israeli genocide at the International Court of Justice) Mokhiber spoke to an Aljazeera journalist about his resignation. See a short video HERE.
Canada Talks Israel Palestine (CTIP) is the weekly newsletter of Peter Larson, Chair of the Ottawa Forum on Israel/Palestine (OFIP). It aims to promote a serious discussion in Canada about Canada’s response to the complicated and emotional Israel/Palestine issue with a focus on the truth, clear analysis and human rights for all. Readers with different points of view are invited to make comment.
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His comments are accurate, eloquent and compelling . What else can be said but end immediately this mad war and begin the process of accountability of all perpetrators before the International Court .
Craig Mokhiber’s letter is an eloquent example of speaking truth to power. Anti-Truth organizations such as UN Watch, which has been advocating his firing, must be rejoicing his departure. His letter ends with a statement that indicates that he still wants to be of help. Perhaps OFIP could arrange for him to speak or, at least, to interview him. The world needs to hear as much from him as possible. He must not be silenced but broadcast.
Wow, the letter is powerful and incredibly well-thought-out!!!!
I used to believe that a 2 state solution was the best solution for the Palestine/Israel ongoing problems but having listened to many scholarly views on the subject for many years ,I also ,have come to the point of view that the only real lasting solution would be one state,a new state ,call it a new name if you will ,but a new state ,with equal rights for all citizens regardless of religion ,race and color of your skin .
So glad to see that within the United Nations there are sane voices ,fully committed to human rights for all ,and cognizant of the irreconcilable views in the Middle East for a proper resolution ,given as things are .
Sad that Craig Mokiber had to resign due to not being heard .But many thanks to Craig for voicing his concerns with the UN .Maybe many more will step up to the plate and demand what would be the only lasting solution to this over 100 year problem ,principally caused the British ,through the Balfour agreement .
There is no reason why a state cannot have two or more names, one for each nation that lives there. Belgium has three native names (België, Belgique, Belgien) plus the one we use.
Before you blame the Balfour agreement too much, remember that it did not contain the word “state” at all; it promised a “national home” not a state. A state can be a home to many groups. Further, the second section said that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”. The main problem with the Balfour declaration is that people ignored what it actually said.
Craig Mokiber deserves high praise. It is always difficult to speak truth to power and cut through the delusional, disingenuous constructs maintained by most western press and media corporations. The media outfits are themselves supplicants to the beastly military industrial complex, which benefits from these destructive conflicts, and has unwarranted sway over governments. Human attraction to polarizing ideologies, and lust for wealth and power, underlie most of this.
Israel’s killing spree and USA’s carte blanche provision of money and weapons have resulted in a dangerous genocide that has to stop. Canada’s duplicitous support has contributed to the insanity. We should have learned from the European Holocaust that further mass killings of civilians bearing an ethnic label would always be abhorrent and wrong.
I hope that soon we might teach Craig Mokiber’s 10 points to children in middle school civics and history classes in all nations.