The United Nations on Thursday was accused of spreading pro-Hamas propaganda through one of its online newsletters, including links to websites that organized protests to block roads in American cities on April 15 in violation of U.S. law.
The allegation came from a group called Human Rights Voices, which backed up its charges with screenshots of the U.N.’s “NGO Action News” online newsletter.
NGO Action News is a weekly newsletter produced by the United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine (UNISPAL). The newsletter links to various Internet posts containing information related to the Palestinians and the war in Gaza, almost all of them strongly critical of Israel.
In the April 11 edition of the newsletter, one of the entries points to a post from a group called U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) entitled “Stop Arming Israel: 5 Ways to Take Action for Tax Day.”
“Tax Day” was April 15, the deadline for filing U.S. income tax returns. Pro-Palestinian activists used the day to stage demonstrations against American funding of Israel. Some of those demonstrations included illegal, destructive, and dangerous activities such as blocking high-traffic roads, bridges, and airports. Dozens of protesters were arrested in cities across the country.
The U.N. newsletter apparently had no problem with USCPR calling for “a coordinated economic blockade in cities around the world.” The post linked from the U.N. publication explicitly called for disruptive activities and linked to an even more provocative website created by the group that organized the illegal Tax Day protest actions, A15 Action.
“The United Nations is distributing, through its global online network, alerts and links to events in the U.S. that break U.S. law. Detailed announcements and invitations to participate in such illegal activities are found on third party websites,” Human Rights Voices charged.
Human Rights Voices noted that the NGO Action News publication includes a disclaimer that the U.N. is “not responsible for the content of any linked site,” but the U.N. does exercise editorial judgment over the newsletter.
Human Rights Voices noted that the April 15 protests included “illegally obstructing vehicular traffic, blocking pedestrian travel, impeding regular flow of business, endangering lives by preventing emergency services, resisting arrest,” and “false imprisonment,” among other charges.
The U.N. has faced mounting criticism for openly sympathizing with Palestinian militants, most famously including the January debacle in which Israeli intelligence revealed a dozen staffers of UNRWA, the U.N.’s Palestinian relief agency, actively participated in the horrific October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israeli civilians.
The U.S. and many of its allies suspended funding for UNRWA after those bombshell revelations. Some allied nations have since resumed funding out of humanitarian concerns for the population of Gaza, but the U.S. has not.
Controversy has also developed around the U.N. special rapporteur for the Palestinians, Francesca Albanese, a strident and frequently vicious critic of Israel who has a much more relaxed attitude toward Hamas death squads.
Israel declared Albanese persona non grata in February after she claimed “the victims of the October 7 massacre were not murdered because of their Jewishness, but in response to Israeli oppression.”
In November, Albanese said Israel has no right to defend itself against Palestinian terrorism, because Palestinian “territory” is under “belligerent” Israeli occupation.
Former Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen in December said the U.N.’s general conduct since the Hamas attack was a “disgrace to the organization and the international community,” including U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who seemingly blamed the victims by remarking that Hamas’ rape and murder spree “didn’t happen in a vacuum” because Palestinians have been “subjected to 56 years of suffocating opposition.”
