Recently, an information and media coordinator for the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Kuhlood Badawi, Tweeted a picture of a The picture is graphic and shows a dead young girl covered with blood in the arms of a man presumed to be her father. Badawi posted this message along with the image (warning: violent image; not work safe).
Palestine is bleeding. Another child killed by #Israel. Another father carrying his child to a grave in #Gaza.
It's a very tragic scene that would pull the heart strings of most people. Unsurprisingly the picture was Retweeted hundreds of times and spread across the internet like wildfire. The problem is, it is actually a picture taken in 2006 and the girl was the unfortunate victim of an automobile collision unrelated to Israel.
Herb Keinon in The Jerusalem Post reports that Israel's UN Ambassador Ron Prosor demanded that Badawi be fired from her job. Prosor pointed out that the Tweet became the top tweet of the day for Gaza related Tweets. Prosor also demanded that the OCHA release a statement about the truth behind the picture.
Keinon also reports that the Israeli Foreign Ministry believes that the OCHA is merely an organization in favor of Palestinian propaganda and that this recent action by Badawi is the icing on the cake. The Foreign Ministry may have a point, as OCHA has an entire website dedicated solely to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Keinon was surprisingly soft on the issue, merely reporting the Tweet, the revelation of the truth behind the photograph, and Israel's response. Keinon seems to be acting as an objective journalist inputting as little opinion as possible. The Post has however published an article by Israel Kasnett in their "magazine" calling for the UN Human Rights Council to be dissolved, with this Twitter incident cited as a reason.
A healthy debate is always good and should be welcomed. Anyone who fears a legitimate argument is practicing misology. Badawi's bias against Israel is clearly obvious as her Twitter account has the phrase "Long live Palestine" above her username and the background features artwork of a woman holding a Palestinian flag. Badawi is certainly right to her opinion and may even have good arguments in favor of it, but to deceive others is not the means to a good debate. It is simply propaganda.
Badawi did eventually Tweet this retraction:
Correction: I tweeted the photo believing it was from the last round of violence & it turned out to be from 2006 This is my personal account
This is eight days after the fact, and a few days after her job was being threatened. It feels like a desperate attempt to cling to her comfy UN job as opposed to a genuine apology over a supposed mistake. Her pointing out that her Twitter is her personal account comes off as a defense in order to separate her role in the OCHA from the incident. I am guessing that her goal is to declare that she is protected by free speech, though the argument against that is the fact that the UN as an organization should have the right to dismiss officials for various reasons. An information and media coordinator engaging in such behavior in my opinion is grounds for termination as it discredits the OCHA.
For those who fact-check and question what they read and see, the picture actually discredits her side of the argument. Unfortunately, the damage is done and many probably still do not know that the tragic image, while still tragic, was unrelated to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The death of a child is tragic. The deceptive usage of the death of a child for your own gains is absolutely disgusting.
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