CRAIG MOKHIBER, [email protected], @CraigMokhiber
Mokhiber is an international human rights lawyer and former director of the New York Office of the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights.
He recently posted about Germany: “The United Nations was born in opposition to German war criminals. Today, it has elected a German war criminal to oversee its accelerating decline. 80 years later, the Reich takes its revenge with Annalena Baerbock as UNGA President, in the midst of a genocide that she has enthusiastically abetted. #Shame.”
He said today: “Israel has commenced the final phase of its campaign of genocide in Palestine. The moment is urgent. The UN must act with all means at its disposal to provide protection for the Palestinian people, redress for the victims of this genocide, accountability for the perpetrators, and action to address the root causes of the genocide, including apartheid, settler-colonialism, and ethnosupremacy. The UNGA should call out the genocide by name, strip Israel of its credentials, convene under Uniting for Peace to mandate a protection force, call for a complete military embargo and robust sanctions against the regime, demand a ceasefire, and take action to hold all perpetrators to account — whether political officials, soldiers, settlers, or complicit private or third state actors. The lives of millions are at stake. The credibility of international law is at stake. And the future of the UN itself is at stake. The time to act is now.”
Mokhiber participated in the Gaza Tribunal, which recently issued “The Sarajevo Declaration of the Gaza Tribunal,” which concluded with the following: “We are convinced that the challenge of justice now falls to people of conscience everywhere, to civil society and to social movements, to all of us. As such, our work in the coming months will be dedicated to meeting this challenge. Palestinian lives are at stake. The international moral and legal order is at stake. We must not fail. We will not relent.”
As the Freedom Flotilla has set sail to Gaza with another boat with Greta Thunberg and other activists, Mokhiber commented: “Their safety must be guaranteed by all states with the power to do so.” See recent IPA news release about actions outside the UN: “Veterans and Allies Conduct 40-Day ‘Fast for Gaza.’“