UN’s despicable bias over Gaza

Mendacious bias against Israel by the UN, whose charter demands it should be impartial and accurate in global crises, is nothing new. It was evident last week when UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief co-ordinator Tom Fletcher, a former British ambassador and Downing Street adviser to three UK prime ministers, had to walk back manifestly absurd assertions that 14,000 babies would die in the following 48 hours if aid were not allowed into Gaza. The claim prompted a global outcry against Israel before the UN and Mr Fletcher had to admit it was an erroneous misrepresentation of a year-long projection about malnutrition. Fourteen thousand babies were not about to die. Mr Fletcher’s explanation for his hysteria was that he was “desperate to get that aid in” – and, presumably, economical with the truth.

Unabashed, he was at it again in a BBC interview last Friday, lambasting Israel for allegedly deliberately starving Gaza’s population. “It is classified as a war crime,” he warned. And he was too ready to shoot from the lip and feed anti-Israel sentiment across the world when, referring to the food crisis in Gaza, he told CNN “10,000 aid trucks” were “cleared and ready to go”. That. too, was nonsense. Given such shameful bias, it is no surprise that Monday’s release by the Israel Defence Forces of footage showing masked Palestinians opening fire on and throwing stones at Gazans trying to collect food from an Israeli-facilitated humanitarian aid point in Khan Younis has elicited no outrage from the world body.

Amid the suffering of Gazans, prolonged by Hamas basing its operations in civilian areas, it would be hard to imagine anything more inhumane than firing at Gazans lining up for food. It is symptomatic of the world body’s hypocrisy that it has been silent about the outrage. The drone footage confirms that Hamas, which is responsible for the war, is callously using starvation as a deliberate strategy. The terrorists’ hijacking of aid convoys, rerouting supplies to Hamas warehouses for sale to starving Gazans at extortionist prices, is also despicable.

Yet from the UN there is mainly condemnation of Israel: no mention of Israeli hostages held captive and tortured by Hamas, no condemnation of terrorist misuse of Gazans as human shields, just senseless criticism of the one side in the war that is a UN member and democracy. Mr Fletcher’s bias, as The Jerusalem Post wrote, is “blame without balance” – omission where Hamas is concerned and vilification where Israel is involved. In failing to condemn gross inhumanity such as the Palestinian gunmen targeting desperate Gazans seeking food, the UN has destroyed whatever moral compass it had.