Thursday, March 27, 2008
Quel surprise: The United Nations picks Javert to investigate Israel
The United Nations has selected Richard Falk, a former Professor of Politics at Princeton and longtime critic of Israel, to sit in judgment of the Jewish state:
The United Nations Human Rights Council on Wednesday appointed American Jewish law professor Richard A. Falk - who has compared Israel to the Nazis - as special investigator on Israeli actions in the territories for a six-year term.
Falk, who formerly taught international law at Princeton University, replaces South African professor John Dugard, who was an expert on apartheid.
Since my dear departed father taught me to run intellectual risks, I actually took a course from Richard Falk back in 1981, "Introduction to World Order." Falk was an astonishingly tedious lecturer, and unabashedly left wing. He evinced not the slightest interest in anything other than transnational progressive cant, and did not think it important even to pretend to objectivity. I remember him having the second most closed mind in Princeton's Politics Department at that time (the most closed mind belonging to Manfred Halpern, who taught a course called, ironically, "Radical Thought"). My experience with Falk tells me that there are few people less well suited to the role of investigator, unless the point is to adduce evidence to prove a point already believed. The Israelis ought to be outraged, as should anybody who clings to the fantasy that the United Nations is a principled organization.
4 Comments:
By 
, at
Thu Mar 27, 09:31:00 AM:
Seriously, is there anyone clinging to that particular fantasy? I suppose sixties era, politically unreconstructed old hippies might have some vague idea rattling around in their empty but well-meaning skulls that American citizenship is secondary in some way to "world citizenship", but I can't imagine even they and their ilk think highly of the UN...
By 
Georg Felis, at
Thu Mar 27, 09:39:00 AM:
Question: On coursework you turned in for the class, were you required to follow the "Parrot the Leftist" rule (as I have on occasion), or was original thought encouraged?
Reasoning: At school, I once had a die-hard full fledged socialist instructor, and member of MAPJ who was an excellent instructor, encouraged thought, and graded according to skill, not ideology (of which he had plenty). A rare bird indeed, and appreciated.
By , at
Fri Mar 28, 12:45:00 AM:
Its time to get ourselves out of the evil UN after all reagan pulled us out of the evil UNESCO
By TigerHawk, at
Fri Mar 28, 06:15:00 AM:
Georgfelis: I did not have to follow the "parrot the leftist" rule so strongly in Falk's class, because my preceptor was a left-wing but very fair-minded Israeli (a touch of irony, actually). He (the Israeli) was the sort of person who struggled to have an open mind. Also, I ended up writing the paper for the course on the resolution of transnational environmental problems, focusing on acid rain in the Adirondacks generated by the massive nickel mining operation in Canada. This was so long ago that he had never heard of acid rain, and very much liked the paper. My memory was that students who had Professor Falk as their preceptor did not have as open-minded an experience.
I did have that problem, though, in a course called "Radical Thought" that I took from Manfred Halpern. I remember getting a C- on the first paper and a D on the second paper (having criticized a couple of radical writers). On the last paper I whored myself without shame, wrote a paper that included every absurd lefty platitude I could muster, and got an A. Halpern wrote on the paper that it was "just the sort of work I knew you were capable of."
It is a great shame that blogs did not exist then, because both Falk and Halpern were in desperate need of some internet "feedback."
