Ex-U.N. Rapporteur: October 7 attack by Hamas was "long overdue"

"Former UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine Richard Falk claimed that the October 7, 2023 attacks committed by the Hamas terrorist organization in which about 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, were massacred, was ‘long overdue’ and ‘entirely justifiable’ even if violations of international law were committed during the course of the attack.

In an interview published today (Monday) with the Indian site Countercurrents, Falk claimed that, ‘To the extent that there is real evidence of atrocities accompanying the October 7 attack, those would constitute violations, but the attack itself is something that, in context, appears entirely justifiable and long overdue.’

‘One of the tactics used by the West and Israel has been to almost succeed in decontextualizing October 7 so that it appears to have come out of the blue,’ he said, adding a defense of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' controversial statement soon after October 7 that the massacre did not occur ‘in a vacuum.’

Falk agreed with the position of Chinese Ambassador to The Hague Zhang Jun, who argued that the Palestinian Arabs have the ‘inalienable right’ to engage in ‘armed struggle’ against Israel.

‘Yes, I think that’s a correct understanding of international law—one that the West, by and large, doesn’t want to hear about,’ he said of Zhang's position.

Professor Anne Bayefsky, the Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and President of the Human Rights Voices organization, told Arutz Sheva - Israel National News that Falk's latest comments are indicative of the case being made against Israel at the International Criminal Court.

‘What is particularly important to know is that this is the kind of person that the Prosecutor of the ICC, Karim Khan, actually relied on and cited in his effort to criminalize Israeli self-defense and to jail Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israel's former Minister of Defense. Falk directly connects the dots between grotesque, violent, genocidal antisemitism, and the character and agenda of the International Criminal Court,’ Prof. Bayefsky said..."