The U.N. pointman for Paleostinian human rightsWhen they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
launched a blistering attack on the international community Monday, accusing it of conspiring in Israeli settlement policies and branding the grinding of the peace processor a "trick".
Richard Falk, the special U.N. rapporteur for human rights in the occupied territories, also took aim at the so-called Middle East
Quartet... The Quartet are the UN (xylophone), the United States (alto), the European Union (soprano), and Russia (shortstop). The group was established in Madrid in 2002 by former Spanish Prime Minister Aznar, as a result of the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Tony Blair is the Quartet's current Special Envoy....
's peace envoy Tony Blair over his efforts in the region.
Falk, who spoke to news hounds after addressing the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, said Paleostinians in the occupied West Bank were offered no protection in Israeli law and that their treatment was akin to apartheid.
"I think one has to begin to call the reality by a name," he said, likening the "discriminatory dualistic legal system" in the West Bank to the former system in South Africa.
In his report to the council, Falk expressed his concern about Israel's use of administrative detention, the expansion of settlements and violence by settlers.
Israel in March severed contacts with the council after the 47-member body said it would investigate settlements in the occupied territories, which are considered illegal under international law.
Peace talks between the two sides have been on hold since September 2010, with the Paleostinians refusing to resume them without a moratorium on settlement building.
"The grinding of the peace processor is a trick rather than a way to find a solution to the problem," Falk said.
He also criticized the work of the former British prime minister Tony Blair in the region.
"Tony Blair has not much to show for his 86 visits to the Middle East... (it is) an extension of the grinding of the peace processor which I regard as a failure because while time passes the settlement culture continues."
"The international community is conspiring -- maybe unwittingly -- in a process that has no way of bringing justice to the people involved in this conflict," he said of settlements.