Letter to the Editor
It is an utter disgrace that the mainstream media has given so little attention to the deportation of the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories, Professor Richard Falk, from Israel on 15 December 2008. Even those that provided some coverage like the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune were clearly biased against Falk.
Richard Falk is an honest, upright intellectual who for decades has endeavoured to tell the world the truth about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the situation in Occupied Palestine. Who can deny that the blockade imposed by the Israeli authorities— a blockade supported by the United States and the European Union— upon Gaza after Hamas won a decisive victory in the Palestinian Legislative Council election in January 2006 has created immense suffering among the people of Gaza? Food and medicines are in short supply. 50 percent of Gazan children are victims of acute malnutrition. 70 percent of the population has been deprived of gainful employment. More than 80 percent live below the poverty-level. It is this catastrophe that Falk rightly calls a “crime against humanity.” It is because collective punishment of this sort is reminiscent of what the Nazis did to the Jews that Falk warned some time ago that if the situation persisted it could lead to a holocaust. Richard Falk is not the only individual of standing to have made such an observation.
It may be because the Israeli government did not want Falk in his capacity as UN rapporteur to provide eye-witness confirmation of the terrible atrocities it has committed in Gaza which is still very much under its control that it detained him at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport for 20 hours and then deported him to Geneva. It was a crude attempt by an unjust and inhuman regime to curtail the impact of the truth.
But a lot of people know what is happening in Gaza and have even sought to beat the blockade and reach out to the Gazans. Activists from other countries have brought humanitarian aid via ships since border crossings are closed. It is not just Israel that has sealed its border. The Egyptian authorities
are also collaborating with the Israelis to ensure that there is no breach of their border with Gaza. In spite of this, there are Egyptians, just as there are Israelis, who are defying the blockade.
These courageous attempts to help a beleaguered people are not highlighted in the mainstream media. The mainstream media will not allow effective scrutiny of Israeli policies and actions vis-a-vis the Palestinians. For the media elites, Israel is somehow ‘above the law.’ Even if once in a while, the media censures Israel in relation to the Palestinians and other Arabs, it is done with velvet gloves.
Is it any wonder then that the shameful deportation of UN rapporteur, Richard Falk, was blacked out by the mainstream media?
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Dr. Chandra Muzaffar,
President,
International Movement for a Just World (JUST).
Malaysia.
26 December 2008.