THE SHAME OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: HONORING RICHARD FALK-SOHRAB AHMARI
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A 9/11 Conspiracy Theorist who Also Blames Jews for the Boston Marathon Attacks
No matter how deep into the political fever swamps some scholars wade, it seems, progressive academe won’t shun them.
Consider Richard Falk, a retired international-law professor whose tenure as the United Nations Human Rights Council’s rapporteur on the Palestinian territories has proved an embarrassment, even judging by the U.N.’s rather peculiar moral standards. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has twice censured Mr. Falk for his anti-American and anti-Semitic rhetoric, and Western powers have repeatedly called for his removal.
Assistant books editor Sohrab Ahmari on Princeton’s embrace of U.N. official Richard Falk, a 9/11 conspiracy theorist and terrorist sympathizer. Photo: Getty Images
Yet Princeton University, where Mr. Falk taught before entering the U.N. rapporteur corps, has invited him to deliver an annual lecture named for the late Palestinian scholar and activist Edward Said on Feb. 18. Perhaps Princeton’s faculty and administrators have missed some of their former colleague’s recent career highlights:
• Mr. Falk wrote the foreword to David Ray Griffin’s “The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11” (2004). The book is a 9/11 conspiracy theorists’ bible of sorts, but Mr. Falk called it “an extraordinary book” that has the “potential to become a force of history.”
• In 2008, Mr. Falk wrote a blog post expounding on his 9/11 denialism: “Every so often attention is called anew to the doubts surrounding the true character of the events surrounding the 9/11 attacks. Recently, the report of the collapse of building 7 represented such an occasion. 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.”
• In 2011, Mr. Falk posted to his blog a cartoon of a dog devouring human remains and urinating on Lady Justice. The dog is wearing a yarmulke with a Star of David, while the torso is marked “USA.” Confronted by critics, Mr. Falk denied posting the cartoon; deleted it while also defending its content; and finally offered a non-apology apology.
• Last year, Mr. Falk blamed the Boston Marathon bombings on “American global domination” and “Tel Aviv.”
Neither Princeton’s academic community nor the Palestinian cause will be well-served by honoring Richard Falk.
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