Richard Falk
Richard FalkReuters

The United Nations’ “human rights expert”, Richard Falk, is accusing Israel of carrying out policies which “amount to apartheid” in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, Reuters reported on Monday.

The news agency presented excerpts from Falk’s final report to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) before he steps down serving the maximum term of six years as a UN expert. The UN Watch NGO reported last week that in the same report, Falk accuses Israel of “inhuman acts" and calls on the world body to support a “legitimacy war” against the Jewish state.

According to Reuters, Falk accuses Israel of a “systematic oppression of the Palestinian people and de facto expropriation of their land”.

He also says that Palestinian Arabs’ rights are being violated by Israel's prolonged “occupation of Palestinian territory and ethnic cleansing” of eastern Jerusalem.

Gaza, despite the disengagement of Israel in 2005, remains "occupied" under an unlawful Israeli blockade that controls borders, airspace and coastal waters, and especially hurts farmers and fishermen, he claims, according to Reuters. The Palmer Report, commissioned by the UN in 2011, deemed Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza to be legal.

Falk also says in his reports that UN member states should consider imposing a ban on imports of produce from Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

In a section entitled "acts potentially amounting to segregation and apartheid", he analyzes Israeli policies, including "continuing excessive use of force by Israeli security forces" and unlawful killings that he said are "part of acts carried out in order to maintain dominance over Palestinians,” according to Reuters.

"It seems incontestable that Israeli measures do divide the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory along racial lines, create separate reserves for Palestinians and expropriate their land," Falk writes in the 22-page report.

"The combined effect of the measures designed to ensure security for Israeli citizens, to facilitate and expand settlements, and, it would appear, to annex land is hafrada (the Hebrew word for separation), discrimination and systematic oppression of, and domination over, the Palestinian people," he adds.

Falk has a history of anti-Israel statements, and has in the past compared Israelis to Nazis. He also criticized Israel for keeping Islamic Jihad terrorist Khader Adnan in custody, even after a video of him pleading for suicide bombers to “carry the next explosive belt” was exposed.

Reuters noted that there was no immediate reaction to Falk’s latest report from Israel, which recently returned to the Human Rights Council following a two-year absence.

Israel cut ties with the organization in March 2012 over the UNHRC’s intention to examine how Jewish “settlements” in Judea and Samaria “may be infringing on the rights” of Palestinian Arabs. Israeli leaders accused the UN body of a persistent bias against Israel.

The body has condemned Israel 46 times, far more than it has condemned any other country, including countries with well-documented histories of violations of human rights.