UN Press Corps Expunges Israel

The United Nations has a long history of insulting, disparaging and attacking Israel. It’s press corps now seems to want to selectively remove Israel from its records.

On October 16, 2015, the UN Security Council met to discuss the violence in the Middle East. US Ambassador Samantha Power delivered her remarks about her “deep concern… about the current situation.” She specifically condemned the violence in “Jerusalem, the West Bank, Israel and the Gaza Strip.” However, when the UN media center summarized her remarks, it stated that the US condemned the violence in “Jerusalem, West Bank, Gaza and elsewhere.” “Elsewhere”? Really? Was writing “Israel” too difficult? Was acknowledging the stabbings and attacks in Israel too controversial?

US Ambassador Samantha Power
(photo: AP)

When the Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs at the UN, Tayé-Brook Zerihoun, gave an update on the situation, he described the violence in “the West Bank, Jerusalem and East Jerusalem,” but the press corps just mentioned a “deadly week in the West Bank” removing any mention of Jerusalem.

Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs, Tayé-Brook Zerihoun
(UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras)

Most alarmingly, the Assistant Secretary General welcomed “Prime Minister Netanyahu’s repeated assurances that Israel has no intentions of changing the historic status quo at the holy sites,” but the UN media completely omitted the statement in its coverage. As the Temple Mount rumor was the rallying cry for Palestinian extremists to engage in violence, shouldn’t that have been prominently highlighted, not ignored?

The UN press continued to ignore Israel three days later when it mentioned attacks in seven cities – all east of the Green Line/ the West Bank of the Jordan River. The attacks in seven Israeli cities were omitted.

It seems to not be sufficient for Israel to contend with numerous hostile countries at the United Nations and a UN leadership with an anti-Israel bias. Israel must also deal with an internal UN media team that selectively removes it from its records.