Israel: Fire UN official over false Gaza photo

                In an article by Herb Keinon entitled Israel: Fire UN official over false Gaza photo, Israel Ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, demanded the dismissal of UN official Kuhlood Badawi. Kuhlood Badawi is an information and media coordinator for OCHA. OCHA is the UN's office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs. Badawi had posted a picture on twitter of a young girl covered in blood being carried by her father. Along with the picture she tweeted, "Palestine is bleeding. Another child killed by #Israel...Another father carrying his child to the grave in #Gaza." It falsely claimed that the little girl was killed by an IDF strike. The photo was taken in 2006 and was unrelated to Israel.

                        Prosor sent a letter to the undersecretary general of humanity affairs. In Prosor's letter, he angrily claimed her tweet was false and was the top tweet of the day regarding news linking to Gaza. Prosor goes on to mention that OCHA deviates from the original intent of the organization, which is to remain impartial. The spreading of misinformation erodes the credibility and integrity of the organization, especially in the Israeli public. The twitter comment demonizes Israel and contributes to the incitement and conflict. He called for Kuhlood Badawi to be fired and for OCHA to disassociate itself from her twitter.    

            The Foreign Ministry has also had its complaints against the OCHA organization. They view OCHA as a very one-sided. Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor felt that OCHA betrayed its original humanitarian mission for pro-Palestinian propaganda. He felt this "fabrication" hit a new low for OCHA. He states that "It is intolerable that UN money pays for this." When OCHA was approached to respond about the incident, a spokeswoman in Jerusalem said that she was not allowed to comment on the matter, and to try the New York department. The spokeswoman there was unaware of Prosor's letter and said she would look into it. No further response had occurred by the time it went to press. 

            I feel that the author remained fairly neutral given the lack of cooperation or knowledge from OCHA. The article has the possibility of being perceived as taking the side of Prosor and Palmor, but I do believe the author was doing a good job of only stating what they commented and not giving his own opinion. The author also mentions in the article the attempt to try to contact OCHA before press time was up. If anything, the author was a bit lazy in giving the reader a more detailed background. With that being said, I feel that the author poorly informed the reader of what happened in the picture. According to a post on the Israel Defense Forces site, the little girl had fallen off of a swing and was badly injured, not killed. This background is crucial in informing the reader that it had absolutely nothing to do with Israeli/Palestinian politics. The author does mention that the injury is unrelated but leaves a grey area that allows for the reader to assume it might have had something to do with civilian casualty from a previous attack. 

             The author also didn't use many sources in his article. Though the author did get quotes from Prosor and Palmer, and attempted to get them from OCHA, he failed to mention how pro-Israelis and pro-Palestinians both have tweeted faulty claims, pictures, and videos. In an article by Ruth Eglash, she perfectly lays out the ongoing online battles from both sides. Both trying to discredit and uncover fake, or doctored images from one another. She mentions Diana Alzeer, a Palestinian blogger/twitter user, who responded to criticism against her for reposting the image, after apologizing, said that a twitter post by IDF spokeswoman Avita Leibovich, who falsely put a video up of "a barrage of Grad rockets ranging 40km, fired by Jihad into Israel" from last October proved to be an inaccurate posting on the side of the Israelis. The author of this main article could have done a better job in pointing out these online battles from both sides, to show that it is an ongoing information sharing dilemma, not just a one-off fluke. Although there is a possibility that the author may have left out that kind of information for a more subversive attempt to sway the reader into his own one-sided view.