The demand to retract a scathing anti-Israel report, penned by a controversial “scholar,” has led to the resignation of the executive director of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia.
Rima Khalaf tendered her resignation after U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres demanded that the flagrantly biased report be removed from the commission's website. This, after U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley blasted the paper as “anti-Israel propaganda.”
The report called Israel an “apartheid state” and said Israel's policies toward Palestinians define “an institutional regime of systematic oppression and domination,” Fox News reported.
Such a tirade is not surprising from the report's author, Richard Falk, a former U.N. special rapporteur to the Palestinian territories. He's known for his bitter criticism of Israel and his skepticism of what he calls “the official version of 9/11,” according to Fox News.
As for Ms. Khalaf, her resignation over the retraction was met with predictable praise from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who awarded her the Palestine Medal of the Highest Honor.
Nevertheless, the move to dump this rubbish won praise from Israeli diplomat Eitan Weiss, who said the turn of events suggests “the winds of change are blowing in the (corridors) of the U.N.”
It's not a sea change, per se. But for a world body that has long plastered a bull's-eye on Israel, it's a start.
