A former top United Nations official in New York joins us for an in-depth interview about why he has resigned after publicly accusing the U.N. of failing to address what he calls a “text book case of genocide” unfolding in Gaza. Craig Mokhiber is a longtime international human rights lawyer who served as director of the New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. His resignation letter (embedded below) has gone viral. In one of his first interviews since leaving his post, Mokhiber tells Democracy Now! the U.N. follows a “different set of rules” when addressing Israel’s violations of international law, refusing to utilize its enforcement mechanisms and thus “effectively” acting as “a smokescreen behind which we have seen further and worsening dispossession of Palestinians.” He says it is an “open secret inside the halls of the United Nations that the so-called two-state solution is effectively impossible,” and calls for international actors to push for a “new paradigm” in the region based on “equality for all.” We also discuss the inaction of the International Criminal Court, global suppression of pro-Palestinian advocacy, bad-faith accusations of antisemitism and more.
