A number of employees from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), responsible for the welfare of Palestinian refugees, have been fired or face disciplinary action after praising Palestinian stabbing attacks and inciting violence against Jews on social media.
A UN Watch report submitted last week to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UNRWA chief Pierre Krähenbühl, and U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power, stated that at least ten UNRWA workers were inciting Palestinian attacks against Israeli Jews on social media platforms.
The report recommends that a number of Facebook users should be fired for identifying as UNRWA employees on accounts “[promoting] violence and terrorism”. Examples of incitement include posts encouraging Facebook users to “Stab Zionist dogs” and videos glorifying terrorist attacks.
UN Secretary General Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq said that through “working closely with Facebook’s legal team, UNRWA has brought about the removal of more than 90 imposter or unauthorised Facebook pages. In some cases, it has determined the alleged ‘UNRWA staff’ are not in fact UNRWA employees or are no longer UNRWA employees”.
He added: “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”.
UN Watch has demanded a full apology from UNRWA Spokesman Chris Gunness, who previously responded to the report with an appeal to journalists saying: “Please don’t turn UN Watch baseless allegations about anti-Semitism into a ‘he said she said’ story. It is a non-story”.
Click here for the full report by UN Watch entitled “UNRWA Teachers and Other Officials Inciting Violence and Anti-Semitism”.
