(JTA) — Richard Falk, an official for the U.N. Human Rights Council, in an online commentary blamed the Boston Marathon bombing on "Tel Aviv."
"(A)s long as Tel Aviv has the compliant ear of the American political establishment, those who wish for peace and justice in the world should not rest easy," Falk, the council’s special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, wrote in an Op-Ed posted to the online Foreign Policy Journal on Tuesday.
Falk, who has said the George W. Bush administration was complicit in the 9/11 attacks, also called the Boston attack “retribution” for the actions of the U.S. military in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.
"The American global domination project is bound to generate all kinds of resistance in the post-colonial world," Falk wrote. "In some respects, the United States has been fortunate not to experience worse blowbacks, and these may yet happen, especially if there is no disposition to rethink US relations to others in the world, starting with the Middle East."
In recent months, Falk published an anti-Semitic cartoon on his blog and called for a boycott of Israel.
B’nai B’rith International called for Falk’s removal from the Human Rights Council, saying that his "latest string of inflammatory remarks — whether it be on the Internet or in one of his ‘reports’ to the council — has no place in the United Nations and his continued presence at the UNHRC further undermines the credibility of the system."
Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, sent letters to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, calling on them to condemn Falk’s "odious and preposterous" remarks.
U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq, according to UN Watch, called Falk "an independent expert" and said Ban "did not appoint him and is not responsible for his views, which he has criticized in the past."
"Mr. Falk reports to the Human Rights Council, which is comprised of different member states,” Haq said, according to UN Watch.
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