Weaponizing the Right to Food: A One-Sided Narrative Disguised as UN Analysis
Following is a legal analysis of the 2026 report by Michael Fakhri, Special Rapporteur on the right to food, to the UN Human Rights Council.
By Dina Rovner, Legal Advisor at UN Watch
Introduction
Michael Fakhri’s report to the 61st Session of the UN Human Rights Council, Land and the Right to Food, is not a neutral or balanced assessment of land governance. It is an ideological critique of market economies and Western legal systems, premised on the view that private property and international trade are inherently destructive. Throughout the report, Fakhri privileges collective and customary tenure systems as morally and legally superior, while casting individual property rights as narrow and harmful.
From the outset, the report frames land commodification as “one of the most destructive global practices” and a “major cause of hunger and starvation” (Summary). It accuses “corporations and rich people” of destroying “land’s life-giving force” and links market concentration-namely, the consolidation of land ownership and control-to “systemic hunger, poverty and violence” (para. 1; 6). International trade law, investment treaties, and global finance are portrayed not as complex legal frameworks subject to debate and reform, but as structurally unjust systems designed to dispossess (para. 8). Individual “property rights” are repeatedly characterized as part of the problem, while “customary” and “collective” land rights are presented as the normative alternative (para. 45-59; 84-90).
The ideological framing is reinforced by the report’s opening citation to Mahmoud Darwish’s poem On This Land (para. 1). Rather than grounding the analysis in international legal doctrine or empirical evidence, Fakhri begins with Palestinian nationalist poetic imagery about belonging to the land. Darwish is not cited merely as an illustrative quotation. He is invoked as a moral authority. A central figure in Palestinian nationalist literature, Darwish is widely regarded as a symbol of Palestinian resistance, and his poetry fuses themes of exile, land, dispossession, resistance, and identity. On This Land advances a one-sided conception of belonging to the land of “Palestine,” omitting Jewish historical ties, and is frequently cited to legitimize resistance narratives. This choice signals that the report is structured less as legal analysis and more as moral advocacy. Later, Fakhri again invokes Darwish’s poetry to describe how he has “witnessed people’s relationship with their land and territory as divine” (para. 28). This kind of spiritual framing cannot replace legal reasoning in a UN mandate report.
This framing culminates in the conclusion, where Fakhri describes himself as being “from a mountain village in Lebanon” and shares a personal aphorism from his father about “learning how to share the sky” (para 79). In a report that repeatedly elevates indigenous land struggles and critiques Western legal systems, this self-description does more than provide background. It places the mandate-holder within a narrative of ancestral, land-based belonging. Yet while Fakhri’s family is Lebanese, he himself is a Canadian-born law professor at an American university, operating within the very Western legal and socio-economic systems the report portrays as structurally unjust. The contrast underscores how much of the report rests on moral narrative rather than objective legal analysis.
The Special Rapporteur’s mandate concerns the right to food. Yet significant portions of the report move well beyond food security analysis into sweeping claims about settler colonialism, state legitimacy, and the foundational structure of the United Nations itself. This expansion beyond the thematic mandate calls into question its reliability as an impartial assessment.
Consistent with this political framing, the report disproportionately focuses on Israel, repeatedly referring to it as the “Israeli regime”-terminology that departs from standard UN country nomenclature-while other States, such as Russia, are identified by their formal UN names. Although numerous country situations are discussed in brief, over one quarter of the report is devoted to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That conflict is recast as a paradigmatic settler-colonial struggle over land and natural resources. This characterization reduces a complex national and religious conflict to a one-sided colonial narrative, treating Palestinian rights as paramount while effectively denying Jewish historical presence and the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in their historical homeland. Meanwhile, other severe and ongoing land-related crises-including in Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, and elsewhere-are ignored. Nor does the report meaningfully address Russia’s war in Ukraine and its profound impact on global food security.
Indeed, Fakhri dedicates the entire “Justice and Occupation” section to Israel, explicitly justifying this choice by asserting that the Israeli presence in the “occupied Palestinian territory” is not a temporary occupation but a “settler-colonial project” that represents the “global exemplar for the struggle against the global rush to grab land” (para. 65). By elevating the only Jewish state as the archetype of global dispossession, while disregarding other protracted territorial disputes and occupations involving control over land, water, and natural resources-including Northern Cyprus, Western Sahara, Kashmir, Tibet, and Xinjiang-the report reveals a politicized selectivity that further casts doubt on its authority as an independent assessment.
Methodological and Substantive Flaws in the Report’s Analysis of Israel
1. Selective and unbalanced sourcing
Fakhri’s report falls short of the evidentiary standards expected of a UN mandate-holder. While he includes citations, the sections addressing Israel rely heavily on advocacy submissions and UN materials that reflect similar conclusions, rather than a balanced range of independently verifiable sources. For example, in the discussion of buffer zones, the report cites prominently to a submission by BADIL, a Palestinian advocacy organization whose mission centers on advancing the “right of return” and which actively promotes BDS. The report does not meaningfully engage contrary evidence, Israeli governmental positions, or independent legal analysis.
In addition, the report frequently cites prior UN materials-including Fakhri’s own previous report to the General Assembly-reinforcing a circular pattern of sourcing rather than independent verification. Even where Israeli military orders and court cases are referenced by number, the report does not substantively analyze the underlying legal texts or judicial reasoning, instead offering conclusory characterizations of those measures.
Most notably, the discussion in the “Justice and Occupation” section relies in significant part on the testimony of a single unidentified Palestinian witness, without corroboration or opportunity for response. Even if properly corroborated, a single anecdotal account is not a substitute for systematic legal analysis and independently verifiable evidence in a UN mandate report.
2. Omission of terrorism and armed conflict context
Fakhri portrays the Israeli-Palestinian conflict primarily as a struggle over land rights and natural resources, while omitting the central role of terrorism and armed conflict in shaping Israeli policy. The words “Hamas” and “terrorism” do not appear in the report. Nowhere does the analysis grapple with the reality that Israel’s buffer zones, access restrictions, and security measures arise in the context of sustained attacks by Hamas, a terrorist organization designated as such by the United States, the European Union, and others, and one that openly calls for Israel’s destruction..
For example, in discussing Israeli buffer zones in Gaza, Fakhri notes that Israel prohibits plants over 80 cm in certain areas, “supposedly” to prevent their use as natural hideouts (para. 15). The use of “supposedly” dismisses the security rationale without engaging with the documented use of vegetation, agricultural land, and civilian infrastructure for militant purposes. Likewise, in criticizing restrictions on maritime access (para. 16), the report fails to mention Hamas’s use of maritime routes for weapons smuggling and the October 7, 2023 maritime infiltration.
Fakhri accuses Israel of “systemic” and “deliberate” destruction of land and the environment in Gaza, yet does not acknowledge the 500 kilometers of subterranean terror tunnels constructed by Hamas under all of Gaza. Even the reference to the “so-called ceasefire” omits repeated violations by Hamas. By excluding the role of an armed terrorist actor entirely, the report presents Israeli security measures as gratuitous land dispossession rather than policies adopted in the context of ongoing hostilities.
3. Denial of Jewish national rights
Fakhri’s report does not merely criticize Israeli policies. It rejects the legitimacy of Jewish sovereignty in any part of the territory. In paragraph 68, he refers to sovereign Israeli territory as “lands occupied in 1948,” treating the very establishment of Israel as an act of occupation.
Elsewhere, he refers to the “territory of Palestine” as a single territorial unit governed since 1948 by “Israel” and “the State of Palestine” (para. 59). This formulation is historically and legally inaccurate. No Palestinian state existed in 1948, nor did a sovereign Palestinian government exercise authority over the territory in the decades that followed. Between 1948 and 1967, the West Bank was under Jordanian control and Gaza under Egyptian administration. Even today, Palestinian statehood remains contested under international law. To describe the “territory of Palestine” as having been governed since 1948 by both “Israel” and “the State of Palestine” is therefore not merely imprecise, but it misstates the historical record and effectively treats all of Israel as occupied Palestinian territory.
The report further describes Israeli governance as a “settler-colonial project” and characterizes control over land and resources as “foreign colonial control” (para. 18; 65). This language depicts Jews as foreign colonizers rather than an indigenous people with millennia of historical, religious, and continuous presence in the land. The framing erases the indigenous dimension of Jewish claims and denies the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in their historical homeland.
Moreover, in a clear overreach beyond the scope of his right-to-food mandate, Fakhri calls for the realization of a Palestinian “right of return” (para. 67), a position that, in effect, would negate Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. Such a measure would entail the entry of millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees into sovereign Israel, fundamentally transforming its demographic character. Framed as a legal entitlement, the proposal functions in practice as a mechanism for dismantling Jewish sovereignty rather than as part of a negotiated two-state solution.
4. Palestinian return as a condition for UN legitimacy
In paragraph 67, Fakhri moves beyond advocacy for Palestinian rights and advances a far more sweeping claim: that the credibility and survival of the United Nations itself depend on resolving the Palestinian question through realization of return and self-determination.
He writes that the “question of Palestine” is “as old as the United Nations itself,” tying Palestinian dispossession directly to the UN’s founding and its endorsement of partition. He then declares, as established fact, that Israel is committing “genocide” and waging a “starvation campaign.” He claims that a recent ceasefire merely “slowed down” these crimes.
Fakhri goes further still. He argues that the same international legal and political mechanisms required to secure the Palestinian people’s “right to return and self-determination” are necessary to “rebuild the United Nations that died in the last two years,” implicitly referring to the period since October 7, 2023. In effect, he presents the restoration of multilateral legitimacy as contingent upon implementation of Palestinian return.
This goes far beyond criticism of a Member State, arguing that the UN’s institutional legitimacy cannot be restored unless Israel’s statehood is undone.
5. Demonization of Israel
Fakhri accuses Israel of the gravest international crimes, including apartheid (para. 39), genocide (paras. 17, 66, 67), and starvation (para. 39, 65-67), and presents these allegations as established fact rather than as contested claims. These are among the most serious accusations in international law, yet the report offers no comparable treatment of other conflicts. The Sudan conflict, for example, is not addressed at all.
Fakhri devotes an entire section to Israel, describing it as having developed “every technique of dispossession, dislocation and occupation” against the Palestinians (para. 65). By casting Israel as the global exemplar of land dispossession, the report singles out one State-the world’s only Jewish state-as uniquely criminal. This selective use of the most severe legal labels reinforces the report’s broader pattern of treating Israel not as one conflict among many, but as the central moral offender in the international system.
6. Antisemitism and double standards
By casting Israel as the archetype of global land dispossession and applying the gravest criminal labels exclusively to the world’s only Jewish state, while declining to apply comparable scrutiny to other conflicts, Fakhri employs a double standard. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism-adopted by 47 countries-identifies “applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation” as a contemporary example of antisemitism. The report’s selective legal framing aligns with that definition.
Moreover, by suggesting that the United Nations “died in the last two years” and linking its collapse to the Palestinian question, the report attributes systemic institutional failure to Israel’s existence and conduct. Framing the restoration of the international order as contingent upon undoing Jewish sovereignty places the Jewish state at the center of global institutional breakdown. Criticism of Israeli policy is legitimate. Singling out the Jewish state as the central moral cause of international collapse is not. This is a modern articulation of classic antisemitic tropes.
7. Misrepresentation of Israeli Supreme Court jurisprudence
Fakhri asserts that the Israeli Supreme Court “legitimized starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza,” citing not to the Court’s judgment itself but to an Opinio Juris article discussing the Court’s March 2025 decision regarding humanitarian assistance obligations (para. 65). The decision does not legitimize starvation as a weapon of war. To the contrary, the Court reviewed Israel’s obligations under both international and domestic law and assessed its compliance with those obligations. Fakhri’s characterization substitutes a polemical conclusion for the Court’s legal reasoning.
More broadly, the report selectively invokes Israeli Supreme Court rulings to suggest that the judiciary legitimizes Palestinian “dispossession” in the West Bank (para. 78), while omitting decisions that contradict this narrative. In June 2020, the Supreme Court struck down the Settlements Regularization Law, finding that it disproportionately violated the basic rights of Palestinian residents, including property, equality, and dignity. That same year, the Court ordered the removal of the Mitzpe Kramim outpost after determining that it had been built on private Palestinian land. In 2018, 15 settlement homes were evacuated pursuant to a Supreme Court ruling on similar grounds. The Court has also ordered modifications to the route of the West Bank security barrier, including in Beit Sourik Village Council v. Government of Israel (HCJ 2056/04), where it required the State to reroute sections of the barrier that caused disproportionate harm to Palestinian landowners.
These decisions demonstrate that the Israeli Supreme Court operates as an independent judicial body that has repeatedly constrained government action and protected Palestinian property rights. By ignoring this body of jurisprudence, the report presents a selective and distorted account of Israeli law and judicial oversight.
Conclusion
Taken together, these deficiencies-ideological framing, selective sourcing, omission of security context, denial of Jewish national rights, criminal accusations presented as fact, and misrepresentation of Israeli judicial decisions-undermine the credibility of the report as an impartial mandate-holder assessment. A Special Rapporteur is expected to apply consistent legal standards, engage competing evidence, and adhere to the scope of the mandate. This report does not.
