Israel is blacklisting a United Nations official who compared Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip to the Holocaust. The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem said this week it would refuse an entry permit to Richard Falk, who will become the new UN rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories in June, over Falk’s fierce criticism of Israeli policies, made last year. In an essay entitled ‘Slouching Toward a Palestinian Holocaust’, Falk, a US law professor, likened Israel's closure of Hamas-ruled Gaza to Nazi tactics. He has since stood by his statements, though cautioning that they should not be taken literally but, rather, as a warning that Israel needed to heed history when dealing with its Palestinian neighbors.
Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and imposed sanctions after Hamas, an Islamist group sworn to its destruction, took over the territory and launched hundreds of cross-border rocket salvoes. Israel’s Foreign Ministry called on Falk to retract his Holocaust comparison and ensure that any report he issued on Israeli-Palestinian human rights violations included the censure of rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip.