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<div id="reader-header" class="header" style="display: block;"> <font
size="-2"><a id="reader-domain" class="domain"
href="http://mondoweiss.net/2017/03/fearmongering-governments-resignation/">http://mondoweiss.net/2017/03/fearmongering-governments-resignation/</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">UN bowed to ‘fearmongering and threats’
from powerful governments to cover up ‘painful truth’ of
Israeli apartheid — UN official’s resignation letter</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">March 18, 2017 by
Mondoweiss Editors.</div>
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<p class="sizeable"><em>Yesterday Rima Khalaf <a
href="http://mondoweiss.net/2017/03/resigns-refusing-apartheid/"
class="sizeable">resigned as executive secretary</a>
of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission
for Western Asia after the agency was forced to
retract a report stating that Israel is an “apartheid
regime.” Khalaf’s letter of resignation to UN
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was translated and
posted by poet <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/lena.khalaf.tuffaha/posts/10154444542606699"
class="sizeable">Lena Khalaf Tuffaha today on her
Facebook</a> page. Here is that translation: </em></p>
<p class="sizeable">Honorable Secretary General,</p>
<p class="sizeable">I have given a great deal of
consideration to the letter I received from your office,
and I assure you that I in no way question your right to
issue instructions to remove the report from the ESCWA
web site, as I do not question that as employees of the
United Nations, we must all execute the orders of our
Secretary General.</p>
<p class="sizeable">I know very well your commitment to
the principles of human rights in general and your
position on the rights of the Palestinian people
specifically. And I also understand the anxiety you must
have in these difficult times that leave you with few
good choices.</p>
<p class="sizeable">It is clear to me the kinds of
pressures and threats to which the United Nations and
you personally are subjected by states with authority
and influence, because of the publication of the ESCWA
report (Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People
and the Question of Apartheid)[<a
href="http://mondoweiss.net/2017/03/resigns-refusing-apartheid/"
class="sizeable">still available here</a>]. I am
unsurprised that these states, which are run today by
governments with little concern for international
principles and human rights, should resort to tactics of
fearmongering and threats when they fail to defend their
policies and practices which violate the law. It makes
sense that a criminal would attack those who defend the
cause of his victims, but I find myself incapable of
bowing to such pressures, and not because of my role as
an employee of the United Nations, but simply as a sane
human being. For I believe—as you do—in the values and
noble principles that have always represented the forces
of good throughout history, and upon which our
organization, the United Nations, was founded. And, like
you, I also believe that discrimination against any
human being on the basis of religion or skin color or
gender or ethnicity is absolutely unacceptable, and
cannot be made acceptable by political maneuvering or
brute force. And I believe that to speak truth to power
is not only a human right, it is our obligation.</p>
<p class="sizeable">Over the course of two months, I have
been instructed to withdraw two reports published by
ESCWA, not for any error or shortcomings within the
reports themselves and not necessarily because you
yourself disagree with their content, but because of
political pressures from countries implicated by their
blatant violations of the rights of people in the region
and human rights in general.</p>
<p class="sizeable">You have seen with your own eyes how
the people of this region are enduring episodes of pain
and suffering unprecedented in their modern history, and
that the deluge of catastrophes that has overtaken them
today is a direct result of unchecked oppression which
has been ignored, or covered up, or openly engaged in by
governments with dominance and force within the region
and outside of it. These same governments are the ones
pressuring you today to silence the voice of truth and
the calls for justice represented by this report.</p>
<p class="sizeable">In view of all that I have stated
here, I can only insist on the findings of the ESCWA
report, which state that Israel has built an apartheid
regime which aims to give one ethnic group control over
another. The evidence provided in the report is
incontrovertible, and here it is sufficient to point out
that anyone who has attacked the report has been
incapable of calling into question a single word of its
actual content. I see it as my obligation to shine a
light on the truth and not to hide it or obscure the
testimony and evidence it provides.</p>
<p class="sizeable">The painful truth is that an apartheid
regime still exists in the 21st century, and this is
unacceptable under any law and is morally unjustifiable.</p>
<p class="sizeable">As I make this statement, I claim no
moral superiority and no greater clarity than you
possess, the matter is simply that my statements are a
result of an entire life spent here, in this region,
witnessing the horrific consequences of stifling people
and preventing them from expressing the truth of their
suffering through peaceful means.</p>
<p class="sizeable">As such, and after great
consideration, I realize that I too have no choice. I
cannot withdraw, once again, a United Nations report, an
exceptionally researched and well-documented report
about grave violations of human rights. I also realize
that the clear directives of the Secretary General of
the United Nations must be executed. And so the only way
to resolve this tangle is for me to step aside and leave
it to someone else to do what my conscience prevents me
from doing. I realize I have only two weeks of service
remaining in my post, so my resignation is not meant to
exert any political pressure on you. I am simply
resigning because I believe my duty to the peoples of
the region that we serve, and to the United Nations, and
to myself, is not to silence the testimony about a crime
that causes such suffering to so many human beings. For
this reason, I submit to you my resignation from the
United Nations.</p>
<p class="sizeable">Translator <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/lena.khalaf.tuffaha/about?lst=540600655%3A549221698%3A1489852006"
class="sizeable">Lena Khalaf Tuffaha prefaced the
posting</a> with these words:</p>
<blockquote>
<p class="sizeable">Dr. Rima Khalaf, career diplomat
extraordinaire, personal hero, and Executive Secretary
of ESCWA, resigned today after the UN Secretary
General tried to withdraw a report that correctly
identified Israel as an apartheid regime. Anyone who
cares about freedom and equality should read her
letter of resignation, which I have translated here.
Her letter is a document that is now part of the
history of the struggle for freedom. And anyone in the
west who’s super worried about women in the Arab world
should sit down, because we have Rima and many women
like her who just need everyone to get out the way so
we can get our work done. Khalaf women don’t play.
Palestinian women don’t play.</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="sizeable"><em>Thanks <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/nada.elia.14/posts/10154651748454833"
class="sizeable">to Nada Elia</a>.</em></p>
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