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Special Rapporteur for 9/11 Truth

U.N. official under fire for appearing on truther’s radio show

Richard Falk / AP
July 1, 2013

The United Nations special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights appeared on a "9/11 truth" radio show in May and questioned the "official version" of the Sept. 11 attacks, the latest in a string of controversial comments to draw criticism.

U.N. official Richard Falk, who came under fire in April for suggesting the Boston marathon bombing was a justifiable response to America’s interventionist U.S. foreign policy, was a guest on the May 31 episode of Truth Jihad Radio hosted by "9/11 truth" advocate Kevin Barrett.

Falk praised during the interview Barrett’s "patient effort to tell the truth, and to get more and more people that are willing to say: At least that there are important unanswered questions that deserve a response, that the official version [of the Sept. 11 attacks] has unacceptable gaps in it."

"Questioning that deeply the official version of 9/11 does touch the third rail of American political sensitivities, and there is an attempt to discredit and destroy anyone that makes such a bold statement," Falk continued. "This has intimidated a lot of people, and makes people more reluctant than they might otherwise be to raise these suspicions about how to understand that transformative event that has been used to project American power around the world and to engage in these very destructive and dysfunctional wars, Iraq and Afghanistan being the main examples."

Falk was introduced on the show as "the U.N. special human rights rapporteur for the Palestinian territories."

The host Barrett during the interview questioned whether the Boston bombing was "another false flag attack" and slammed the "Neocon crazies" who criticized Falk’s comments about the attack.

Barrett also claimed that the vast majority of Muslims, himself included, believe that the Sept. 11 attacks were an "inside job" designed to incite a war against Islam.

"Is there a way that maybe, given the fact that four out of five Muslims say [9/11] was an inside job, that we can approach this from a human rights perspective, in saying that it’s Islamophobic to accept the official story without questioning it?" Barrett asked Falk.

"Yes, you can certainly argue that," Falk responded.

Barrett has previously questioned the Holocaust.

U.N. Watch, a Geneva-based watchdog group, called on U.N. leadership, including Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, to reprimand Falk for his comments.

Ban’s spokesperson told the Washington Free Beacon that the U.N. chief vehemently disagrees with Falk’s remarks, adding that Falk is an independent rapporteur appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council and does not represent the secretary general.

"We’ve made it very clear that the secretary general does not share his views on topics like this," said Farhan Haq, associate spokesperson for the secretary general. "[Ban has] made very clear that he disagrees with Mr. Falk, including his accounting of the Sept. 11 events."

A spokesperson for Pillay did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

It is not the first time Falk has promoted Sept. 11 conspiracy theories. He wrote in 2008, "Any close student of 9/11 is aware of the many serious discrepancies between the official version of what took place and the actual happenings on that fateful day in 2001."

Falk’s tenure at the United Nations has been riddled with controversy. He posted a cartoon in 2011 of a yarmulke-clad dog urinating on Lady Justice and chewing on a bloody skeleton, prompting accusations of anti-Semitism.

Falk later apologized for the cartoon, saying that he "didn’t realize that it could be viewed as anti-Semitic and still do[es] not realize."

He has also equated Israel’s policies in the Palestinian territories with Nazi actions during the Holocaust.