Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Here's much more on the little mention of the UN's bankrolling of Palestinian Arab propaganda efforts buried in the New York Times piece I mentioned yesterday.
NY Sun: United Nations Bankrolled Latest Anti-israel Propaganda
The U.N. support of the Palestinian Authority's propaganda operation in the midst of the Israeli evacuation of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip has provoked outrage from Israeli and Jewish leaders, who are blaming Turtle Bay for propagating an inflammatory message that they say encourages Palestinian Arab violence.
"The intifada worked. That's contextually what this message is saying," the director of U.N. affairs for the Washington-based Jewish organization B'nai Brith, Amy Goldstein, said...
...A special representative of the United Nations Development Program in the Gaza Strip, Timothy Rothermel, told Fox News that his office provided financial support for the production of materials that make up the Palestinian Authority's propaganda campaign, timed to coincide with the Gaza pullout. The Palestinian Authority's withdrawal committee developed and produced the posters and other items using U.N. money, Mr. Rothermel said.
In addition to the slogan "Today Gaza and Tomorrow the West Bank and Jerusalem," many of the materials displayed the logo of the United Nations Development Program, which operates in 166 countries and spends about half a billion dollars a year.
Asked by a Fox News correspondent about one of the banners bearing the words implying an impending Palestinian Arab takeover of the disputed areas, Mr. Rothermel, said, "That particular poster was prepared by the disengagement office with financial support from the United Nations Development Program."...
...The money was funneled to the committee through a subagency called Program of Assistance to the Palestinian People. U.N. officials were not told about the propaganda campaign or about the slogan, he said.
The director of international affairs for the American Jewish Congress and a Sun op-ed columnist, David Twersky, criticized the UNDP for failing to better track their funds.
"How come they don't know what's happening to their money?" he said. "Where's the audit? Where's the transparency? How could responsible U.N. officials living off of tax dollars have the chutzpah to say I don't know what they're spending their money on?"...
That, of course, is nothing new.
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