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The director of the New York office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Craig Mokhiber, is resigning. The man is of retirement age, but wrote a striking resignation letter. In it he describes Israel’s military actions in Gaza as “textbook genocide”. Mokhiber also accuses the United Nations of negligence: they are once again failing to act.
Mokhiber said the UN had failed to prevent previous genocides against the Tutsis in Rwanda, Muslims in Bosnia, the Yazidis in Iraqi Kurdistan, and the Rohingyas in Myanmar, writing: “High Commissioner, we are failing again. The current large-scale slaughter of the Palestinian people leaves no room for doubt. It is rooted in an ethno-nationalist colonial ideology, after decades of systematic persecution, and is based entirely on their status as Arabs,” Mokhiber said in his resignation letter.
Mokhiber added: “This is a textbook example of genocide,” saying the US, UK, and much of Europe not only “refused to fulfill their treaty obligations” under the Geneva Conventions, but also weaponized Israel’s attack and provided political and diplomatic cover for it.
