Craig Mokhiber accuses UN of silencing him amid Israel's 'genocide' in Gaza

Craig Mokhiber worked at the United Nations for three decades and recently resigned as Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). The international human rights lawyer said the UN is failing to address a “textbook case of genocide” unfolding in Gaza.

In an interview with TRT World's Shabina S. Khatri, Mokhiber discusses why he's disappointed with the UN, his support for a one-state solution and how growing global solidarity for Palestinians is giving him hope for the future.

Why did you leave the United Nations? What was the last straw?

It came in March. I had seen this trend developing, a trepidatious approach of speaking out on Israel-Palestine in the same way we did in other places. In February and March, we had a series of atrocities in the West Bank with the Israeli settlers' pogrom in Hawara. I was speaking out quite publicly and actively about it and I felt that the UN was not dealing with it with the kind of forcefulness that the situation called for.

Then there was a campaign waged against me by Israeli lobby forces — they go after UN officials who speak against Israeli crimes. They held marches by the UN, backed up by Western governments, especially the United States and United Kingdom, that caused a real buzz in the office. For the first time at the UN, I was receiving orders to be silent.

In all my 32 years of fighting for human rights, no one had ever told me to be quiet. That struck me very hard. I was disturbed by this trend, and I was well aware that the reason for the different approach was fear. Fear of powerful Western governments, Israeli lobby groups and a fear of having your life complicated.

Many UN officials have been through this thing where you have smear campaigns organised against you — it’s just par for the course — but they’ve really ratcheted it up recently. I wrote a letter to the High Commissioner in March saying I know how hard it is when we get pressure from powerful Western states and powerful lobbies, but that's not justification to silence us and we shouldn't silence ourselves.

So I did the math. I always said I'll stay in the UN as long as I can be more effective than I would be outside of it. I determined in March that I've reached the point that this is not sustainable. I communicated to the High Commissioner and indicated that I'd be leaving soon. But I had no plan to leave this year. However, since March, the situation got much worse, especially as I saw a genocide in Gaza.

So I penned a letter setting out what I thought was wrong with the UN's approach and what I thought was more successful and normatively consistent that should be adopted, never knowing my last official act would go viral. It's the exceptionalism that was being applied to Israel. My critique is not of the whole UN; the humanitarian workers and development workers on the ground are heroes, but they have been abandoned by the political leadership. And I certainly stand in solidarity with the more than 100 United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees [UNRWA] workers who have been killed by Israel in the last two weeks.

What has the response to your resignation been?

I've received waves of thanks from UN colleagues who basically say my letter expresses their feelings. I was a senior UN person, and there are people lower on the ladder afraid to speak up. There's also a sense that the UN has failed these people who have had smear campaigns against them from pro-Israeli groups. I've also gotten a groundswell of support from people in countries all over the world. I've been swamped with messages of solidarity. I've gotten a few smears and death threats, but those are few and far between. The lobby groups have continued their campaign against me, but that's the price you have to pay.

I've been working for international human rights organisations for 40 years. If you criticise Israel, you're called an anti-Semite, and people don't want to be accused of that. But I have made the case that criticism of Israeli human rights violations is not anti-Semitism, just as criticism of Saudi Arabia's human rights violations is not Islamophobia and criticism of India's human rights violations is not anti-Hindu.

One of the loudest voices defending Palestinian human rights are Jewish groups. Israel doesn't represent all Jewish people. Israel is a state responsible for its own crimes and that doesn't represent Jews around the world. [The protests] are beautiful and extremely moving. These people are really committed. They know the tricks that Israel and its supporters use to ensure continued impunity, and they’re saying, 'not in our name, not in our time, not with our tax dollars.' People of all backgrounds and faiths are standing up in record numbers.

The other thing is that despite the unprecedented degree of crackdown in Western countries, like in Germany and France, people are turning out in the thousands and hundreds of thousands to support Palestinians. We're at one of those historical moments where people are going to ask us, 'what did we do to try to stop this?' And people are going to be taken to account, and as they stand up in the face of oppression, beatings, arrests, they know this.

In your departure letter, you expressed support for a one-state solution. Can you explain it more?

I was appealing for the UN to just be honest for the first time in 30 years. Behind the scenes, everyone recognises that a two-state solution is impossible, there's no viable land left for the Palestinians. Secondly, the so-called two state solution never accounted for the international human rights of Palestinians. Thirdly, de facto it's already one state. All of historic Palestine and Israel has been under the control of Israel for 56 years. That is the reality.

There's not going to be a two-state solution, there's already one state. So let's just demand in this situation what we demand in every other situation in the world: full equality for Christians, Muslims and Jews. You see the angry reaction we get from supporters of the status quo, who find the idea of equality between Muslims, Jews, and Christians offensive. The UN needs to stand for it without exception including in Israel and Palestine.

This mantra of a two-state solution has been used as a smokescreen by Western governments and Israel to fuel the continued dispossession and persecution of Palestinians. It has not served the cause of human rights, it has just led to much further suffering.

What do you see happening next in the region?

I think it's up to us. The complicity of Western governments has been shocking to the conscience. They have not only breached their obligations, they've actually entered the realm of war crimes, by arming, financing, providing intelligence support and vetoes in the UN Security Council, to facilitate Israel's war crimes in Gaza. In the face of the efforts to silence the public, people are nevertheless standing up in the hundreds of thousands. If that grows, it will make it harder for Western governments to be complicit.

Israel is going to continue its genocidal violence against Gaza. Clearly it's not about the hostages. Israeli leadership knows that when you kill Hamas fights you're just creating new ones. What we have is the wholesale destruction of the northern half of Gaza. And making the conditions in the southern part such that the Palestinians will either die or move to the Sinai desert across the Rafa border crossing. Then Israel will have completed its mission of taking over with only a few remaining parts of the West Bank.

The US and British governments are complicit. I do see it being mitigated by public action on those governments. At some point, you'll have internationally mandated documentation of what happened. The US and its allies will ensure Israeli impunity, by blocking investigations and sheltering Israeli perpetrators, as it has in all previous investigations.

The International Criminal Court [ICC] has dragged its feet for many years, but it's coming under more pressure and may be compelled to take action. The crimes that are being alleged that we see before our eyes are crimes of universal jurisdiction, which means trials can take place in third party courts, so Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wouldn't be able to travel for fear of being indicted.

Where I see a shift and where I see the most hope is in civil society, in the solidarity between groups. The institutions have been compromised, but I have seen a much stronger and more principled UN who may be left with no choice. We're at 11,000 dead citizens just in Gaza and many thousands more injured and maimed. The bombs are still falling and will continue to fall.

We have seen an intentional cutting of food and water and fuel. We've seen attacks on hospitals, refugee camps, churches and mosques, and dehumanisation and expression of genocidal intent by Israeli officials. This is extraordinary. It makes it almost impossible for senior officials in international institutions to continue business as usual.

I appealed in my letter for the UN to sign up for the global movement against Apartheid. I'm hoping the pressure will stay on to get everyone back on the straight and narrow and not the path of political expediency.

What's next for you?

I was not expecting any of this. As long as people are willing to listen, my plan is to continue to work in solidarity with human rights groups around the world. To write and speak in my name despite attempts to silence me. I also want to support my colleagues in the UN who want to fight for human rights because they can't stand persecution. They are sometimes abandoned by the political leadership, but I'll have solidarity with them from the outside.