.@UNRWA admits that employees post antisemitism on Facebook ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Thursday, October 22, 2015

.@UNRWA admits that employees post antisemitism on Facebook

The spokesman for United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon quietly announced on the UN website that UNRWA employees have, “in a number of cases,” beeen subject to disciplinary action, including suspension and loss of pay, following an investigation that verified evidence published by UN Watch — in one report last week, and another in September — of incitement to anti-Semitic violence committed by at least 22 UNRWA employees.

Curiously, the following statement was made public only as a bracketed addition buried deep in a UN transcript, and not posted as a stand-alone statement by the UN, or indeed anywhere at all on the UNRWA website:

UNRWA takes all allegations of violations of UN principles as well as its neutrality and established social media policies very seriously. UNRWA condemns and will not tolerate anti-Semitism or racism in any form. Every allegation brought to our attention has either been or is being assessed, and where there are prima facie facts to support the allegation, in accordance with due process. Some allegations have been found to be authentic, others not.

Already, working closely with Facebook’s legal team, UNRWA has brought about the removal of more than 90 imposter or unauthorized Facebook pages. In some cases, it has determined the alleged ‘UNRWA staff’ are not in fact UNRWA employees or are no longer UNRWA employees.

However, and very regrettably, in a number of cases so far, the Agency has found staff Facebook postings to be in violation of its social media rules. These postings have been removed and the staff have been subject to both remedial and disciplinary action, including suspension and loss of pay. The remaining allegations are under assessment.

In light of the above, UN Watch is now demanding a full apology from UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness for his McCarthyite tirade against what he called UN Watch’s “baseless allegations about antisemitism.”

This is of course not enough. UNRWA was forced, kicking and screaming, to even get to this point. They need to be transparent about who was suspended, who was fined and who used UNRWA's name when they weren't really employees. UNRWA needs to publicly inform its employees about this policy. They do not appear to be taking this seriously if they don't even issue a stand-alone statement about this.

I will continue to post daily examples of UNRWA employees posting hate and terror-supporting messages. But this is also something UNRWA should be doing themselves. They clearly aren't taking this seriously if they aren't looking for the offensive posts.

Moreover, UNRWA should explain clearly why it allows its own school logos to erase Israel. This is also against UNRWA's stated policies, but nothing has been done against that. By only focusing on the worst antisemitic and pro-terror messages, UNRWA is giving the impression that it has no problem with other posts that are not as extreme are perfectly OK according to UNRWA rules. We need to know where they draw the line, and why these logos are still being used.

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