SNA (Tokyo) — Craig Mokhiber stepped down from his position as director of the New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, posting a letter to his boss accusing Israel of carrying out “a textbook case of genocide” in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

“As a human rights lawyer with more than three decades of experience in the field,” he explains, “I know well that the concept of genocide has often been subject to political abuse. But the current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist settler colonial ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs, and coupled with explicit statements of intent by leaders in the Israeli government and military, leaves no room for doubt or debate.”

He continues: “In Gaza, civilian homes, schools, churches, mosques, and medical institutions are wantonly attacked as thousands of civilians are massacred. In the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, homes are seized and reassigned based entirely on race, and violent settler pogroms are accompanied by Israeli military units. Across the land, Apartheid rules.”

Furthermore, his assessment based on many years of observing the conflict, including some years living in the Gaza Strip during the 1990s, is that “key parts of the United Nations have surrendered to the power of the United States, and to fear of the Israel Lobby.” The “Western corporate media,” he adds, is “increasingly captured and state-adjacent,” and are “dehumanizing Palestinians to facilitate the genocide, and broadcasting propaganda for war and advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, and violence.”

Mokhiber argues that it is not too late for the United Nations to recover its courage and to stay true to its principled mission, even if “Western powers will fight us every step of the way.”

He concludes that the United Nations must have “the courage to abandon fear and deference to powerful states.”

“The world is watching,” he states. “We will all be accountable for where we stood at this crucial moment in history. Let us stand on the side of justice.”

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