The director of the New York office of the UN high commissioner for human rights has quit his post, saying the international body is “failing” in its duty to prevent what he calls the genocide of Palestinian civilians in Gaza
Craig Mokhiber wrote on 28 October to the UN high commissioner in Geneva, Volker Turk, saying: “This will be my last communication to you” in his role in New York.
Mokhiber, who was stepping down having reached retirement age, wrote: “Once again we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes and the organization we serve appears powerless to stop it.”
He said that the UN had failed to prevent previous genocides against the Tutsis in Rwanda, Muslims in Bosnia, the Yazidi in Iraqi Kurdistan and the Rohingya in Myanmar and wrote: “High Commissioner we are failing again.
“The current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist colonial settler ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs … leaves no room for doubt.”
Mokhiber added: “This is text book case of genocide” and said the US, UK and much of Europe were not only “refusing to meet their treaty obligations” under the Geneva Conventions but were also arming Israel’s assault and providing political and diplomatic cover for it.
The letter has since gone viral on social media, with Owen Jones urging people to read it:
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