Falk Discusses Palestinian Tactics in Campus Lecture

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Palestinians are increasingly using nonviolent tactics to oppose Israel, emeritus professor Richard Falk said in a campus lecture Feb. 18. Falk, who serves as the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, presented the annual Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture. Despite the new use of tactics such as boycotts, in many fundamental ways, nothing has changed in the Palestinian situation, Falk said. “Oppressive occupation continues. The consolidation of Israeli control of Jerusalem has continued. Another decade of settlement expansion has given rise to growing realization that the occupation has become a form of annexation,” he said. Falk has provoked controversy for his critical views of Israel as well as comments suggesting that the Boston marathon bombing resulted from aggressive U.S. global policies. Three senior faculty members in the English department published a letter in The Daily Princetonian dissenting from their department’s co-sponsorship of the lecture. During his lecture, Falk was critical of Israeli and Palestinian leaders, as well as the U.N. But he highlighted the Palestinians’ growing emphasis on nonviolent tactics that put pressure on Israel, the U.N., and other governments in order to cast doubt on Israel’s legitimacy as an occupying power.