UN Official tweets false picture from Gaza.

international | miscellaneous | news report

Friday March 16, 2012 12:58

by Contrarian

No apology or retraction forthcoming

The international effort to delegitimize Israel continues apace. No lie, no Israeli blood libel is too low to stoop in the effort to undermine Israel's very existence and right to defend herself. The latest falsehood is different though; the source is a UN official, a paid Media Co-ordinator. In her personal capacity, of course.

The false tweet

Khulood Badawi works for the OCHA – the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs as an Information and Media Coordinator. Her role is mainly the documenting of human rights abuses and she has a long history of activism in various Palestinian NGOs.

On 10th March last week, she posted a link to a picture of a young girl covered in blood being carried by her father, along with the tweet: “Palestine is bleeding. Another child killed by #Israel... Another father carrying his child to a Grave in #Gaza.” The tweet and the dramatic photo trended strongly, was re-tweeted hundreds of times and became the top Gaza related tweet for the day.

Except, of course, it wasn’t true. Israeli bloggers discovered the picture was published in 2006 by Reuters and was of a Palestinian girl who died in an accident completely unrelated to Israel. (She fell off a swing.)

The reaction since this embarrassing detail emerged has been interesting. Not a peep from Badawi herself. No retraction, no apology. Complete radio silence on her twitter and facebook accounts.

Meanwhile, UN-OCHA seemed unperturbed: “. . . Badawi’s page, “Long live Palestine,” is her personal site. It was not tied to the U.N., said Ramesh Rajasingham, head of the office where Badawi works.
“It is regrettable that a U.N. staff member appears to have posted inaccurate material on her personal Twitter feed,” Rajasingham said. “However, this information does not in any way reflect the views or opinions of the United Nations, nor it has been sanctioned by the organization.”

Well that’s all right then, isn’t it. A UN official, supposedly independent and paid by the world’s taxpayers, can post blatantly false propaganda about Israel and nobody bats an eyelid. All part of the delegitimization effort I suppose. Perhaps some good will emerge, the next UN agency to criticise Israel (they usually do) might receive a more sceptical response.