Who is Craig Mokhiber? UN Human Rights' top official in New York resigns over 'text-book case of genocide' in Gaza
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Craig Mokhiber, director of the New York office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, has resigned in protest over the UN's handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
He has worked for the UN since 1992 and served in a number of prominent roles. A lawyer who specializes in international human rights law, Mokhiber lived in Gaza in the 1990s.
According to the Daily Mail, Mokhiber resigned over a 4-page letter addressed to the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, in Geneva.
The letter, which was dated October 28, began by saying, “This will be my last communication to you” in Mokhiber's role in New York.
The director had reached retirement age while stepping down, reported The Guardian.
What did Craig Mokhiber write in his departure letter?
"Once again we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes and the organization we serve appears powerless to stop it,” the letter read.
Stating that the UN was met with failure in its efforts to prevent previous genocides against the Tutsis in Rwanda, Muslims in Bosnia, the Yazidi in Iraqi Kurdistan, and the Rohingya in Myanmar, Mokhiber wrote that they were "failing again."
“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 … leaves no room for doubt.”
"This is text-book case of genocide,” he added.
Mokhiber claimed that the US, UK and much of Europe were not only “refusing to meet their treaty obligations” under the Geneva Conventions but also aiding Israel by arming them and providing political and diplomatic cover.
"We must recognize that the US and other western powers are in fact not credible mediators, but rather actual parties to the conflict who are complicit with Israel in the violation of Palestinian rights, and we must engage them as such."
Craig Mokhiber calls for 'dismantling of the deeply racist, settler-colonial project'
“We must support the establishment of a single, democratic secular state in all of historic Palestine, with equal rights for Christians, Muslims, and Jews,” wrote the outgoing director, adding, “and, therefore, the dismantling of the deeply racist, settler-colonial project and an end to apartheid across the land.”
The departure letter, however, did not have any mention of the October 27 Hamas attack in Israel.
Craig Mokhiber's outspoken departure met with mixed reaction
Louis Charbonneau, the UN director at Human Rights Watch, told The Guardian, "You don’t have to agree with everything in the letter to see that he’s made a powerful and depressing case that the UN lost its way on human rights when it comes to Israel and Palestine, partly due to pressure from the US, Israel and other governments."
"It’s not too late to turn the UN ship around, but they need to do it quickly,” he added.
On the other hand, Anne Bayefsky, Director of the Touro College’s Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust in New York accused Mokhiber on social media of “overt antisemitism,” citing that the latter used a UN letterhead to call for “wiping Israel off the map”.
