Back in early September we reported here on a story which the BBC did not find newsworthy at the time.
“Thanks to a lot of hard work from blogger Elder of Ziyon and the NGO UN Watch, the issue of antisemitic images posted on social media by some UNRWA employees has recently been brought to public attention.
“UN Watch released a new report today documenting 12 different Facebook accounts operated by UNRWA officials that openly incite to antisemitism and terrorism, and urged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and UNRWA chief Pierre Krähenbühl to terminate the responsible officials, condemn the offending posts, and establish a commission of inquiry, comprised of representatives of top donor states to investigate the culture of impunity for perpetrators of racism and incitement that pervades UNRWA.””
At the time, UNRWA’s spokesman Chris Gunness claimed that the report made “baseless allegation about anti-semitism” and urged journalists to ignore it.
On October 16th, UN Watch submitted an additional report on the same issue to the UN Secretary General and the head of UNRWA.
On October 22nd UN Watch reported that a transcript of a UN press conference revealed that “UNRWA employees have, “in a number of cases,” been subject to disciplinary action, including suspension and loss of pay”. UN Watch noted that the statement was “not posted as a stand-alone statement by the UN, or indeed anywhere at all on the UNRWA website”.
Whilst the BBC has frequently provided a platform for UNRWA and its spokesman in the past, this particular story apparently continues to be of no interest to the BBC.
