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The Goldstone Report establishes the credibility of the accusations directed at Israel with respect to its tactics used during the 2008 - 09 attacks on Gaza, but was not able to facilitate the next step that would have involved activating accountability mechanisms either within Israel or at the level of international society.

Richard A. Falk

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Richard A. Falk
Age: 93
Born: 1930
Born: November 13
Human Rights Activist
Peace Activist
Professor
University Teacher
New York City
New York
Richard A. Falk
Society
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Accountability
Accusations
Next
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Report
Establishes
Used
Steps
Attacks
Gaza
Able
Involved
Directed
Mechanisms
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Mechanism
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Levels
Reports
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Israel
Credibility
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International
Tactics
Activating

More quotes by Richard A. Falk

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On the cautionary side, Universal Jurisdiction could be used to achieve some kind of ideologically motivated criminalisation of 'the other' that would discredit and derail a constructive effort to develop a credible meta-law that governs the behaviour of leaders of sovereign states.
Richard A. Falk
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I once got a call from a bank, asking me to compute a mortgage, since their computers were down. This was a very depressing moment.
Richard A. Falk
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Looked at objectively, it is clear that the overwhelming majority of civilian deaths resulting from political violence are produced by what should be understood as state terror. Terrorism also serves as an excuse to avoid diplomacy and the peaceful resolution of conflict.
Richard A. Falk
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At present, the United States, with over 700 foreign military bases, navies in every ocean, a programme to militarise space, and drone bases planned for all regions of the world, is increasingly perceived in relation to its hard power diplomacy, a threat to political independence and stability for many countries.
Richard A. Falk
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Both Israel and the United States have mounted attacks on 'lawfare', that is, counter-hegemonic uses of international law to question policies associated with the occupation of Palestine and criminal tactics of warfare.
Richard A. Falk
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Cumulatively, American society is sliding toward a new form of 'authoritarian democracy'. Elections continue, free speech is generally protected, institutions operate in accordance with the Constitution, but the reality of state - society relations is dramatically altered by the counter-terrorist claims of emergency rule and the right of exception.
Richard A. Falk
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It is possible that, in fact, Trump's call for America First (despite evoking unpleasant recollections that such a phrase was the invention of those in the 1930s harboring fascist sympathies) and a positive relationship with Russia, might lead [to] a more relaxed global setting.
Richard A. Falk
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What both the state and the capitalist economy oppose is an understanding of what might be called the true nature of things (using the phrase without metaphysical pretensions), especially injustices and exploitative practices.
Richard A. Falk
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When I told my mother that I have to give a talk, and was debating what could I possibly say to non-mathematicians, she said: You got what to wear?.
Richard A. Falk
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We should not rule out the possibility that Trump's diplomacy could deescalate Middle East strife and international tensions, give the US a lower global profile and enable a more balanced world order to emerge, doing most of its damage here at home, through moves to implement his vision of nativist nationalism.
Richard A. Falk
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It should be appreciated that this whole effort to hold leaders of states criminally responsible is a rather radical challenge to territorial sovereignty and a repudiation of the whole related ethos of 'sovereign immunity'.
Richard A. Falk
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It was a step forward to charge Pinochet with terrorism, and to acknowledge that the essence of the crime is the use of political violence to induce great fear in society and against those who are innocent, and not just such violence that is directed against the state by opposition groups.
Richard A. Falk
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The capitalist priority is efficiency of capital and profitability, which is generally inconsistent with protecting the vulnerabilities of people and nature.
Richard A. Falk
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I think the impacts of 9/11 on academic freedom vary greatly depending on locale and time (softening with the passage of time), and even within the same community, and likely within the same schools. This variability makes it difficult to offer generalized responses without accompanying caveats.
Richard A. Falk
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The UDHR has become an iconic document over the course of more than six decades, the starting point for discussions of whether or not the rights as set forth are truly universal or slanted to reflect the hegemony of Western values, especially those associated with liberal individualism.
Richard A. Falk
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The British leadership has acknowledged that it only became possible to end the violence in North Ireland when it stopped thinking of the [Irish Republican Army] as a terrorist organization and began treating it as a political actor with genuine grievances that deserved to be addressed.
Richard A. Falk
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Hamas retains the right to defend Gaza by the use of the weaponry at its disposal, and is thus not committed to nonviolence, but it does offer the possibility of greater peace and stability for both Israelis and Palestinians if the label of terrorism was abandoned and the search for accommodation was commenced in good faith.
Richard A. Falk
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An aggravating feature of this post-9/11 atmosphere is to cast suspicions on Muslims and on Islam as a religion that is interpreted as either inherently violent or death-oriented, with a particular animus against America and Americans.
Richard A. Falk
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Already there exists a growing international concern that Israel has become an apartheid state pursuing policies manifesting a settler colonial mentality. Such perceptions pose a challenge to postcolonial international society that will not be indefinitely ignored, especially if Palestinians achieve greater unity and tactical focus.
Richard A. Falk
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As such the meaning of hegemony is subject to varying interpretations depending on how the historical role of the United States is interpreted.
Richard A. Falk