Human rights official steps down, says UN powerless to prevent Gaza genocide

Director of the New York office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Craig Mokhiber has left his post, leaving a scathing letter saying that the UN has been powerless to prevent yet another genocide.

Mokhiber (above) shared his farewell letter, addressed to UN High Commissioner in Geneva Volker Turk, with journalists and activists who posted it on X (formerly known as Twitter).

“I know well that the concept of genocide has often been subject to political abuse. But the current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist colonial-settler ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs… leaves no room for doubt.

"This is a textbook case of genocide.

"What's more, the governments of the US, UK and much of Europe are wholly complicit in the horrific assault. Not only are these governments refusing to meet their treaty obligations under the Geneva Conventions but were also actively arming the assault, providing economic and intelligence support, and providing political and diplomatic cover for it," he wrote.

Mokhiber has worked for the UN since 1992 and acted as a senior human rights adviser in Palestine, Afghanistan and Sudan. He also lived in Gaza as a human rights adviser in the 1990s.

“Once again we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes and the organisation we serve appears powerless to stop it," he said, citing previous UN failures to protect the Tutsis in Rwanda, Bosnian Muslims, Yazidi in Iraq and Rohingya in Myanmar.

More than 8,000 Palestinians and 1,400 Israelis have died since the conflict erupted on Oct 7.

Mokhiber said that key parts of the UN had surrendered to the power of the US and to fear of the Israel lobby. He also called for an end to the two-state solution.

“We must support the establishment of a single, democratic secular state in all of historic Palestine, with equal rights for Christians, Muslims, and Jews,” he wrote.

In a statement to the media, the Office of Human Rights said: "Mokhiber retires today. The views in his letter are his personal views. The position of the office is reflected in its public reporting and statements."

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