Vigil in Geneva, Staff Union Meeting in NY bring US and Israeli Complaints of UN bias and antisemitism : Shared by Robert Cohen

US to Guterres: “UN is systematically anti-Israel and because of that, anti-semitic”

Ian Richards on Linkedin

https://lnkd.in/p/gssuDvD3 

This was the reaction after UN staff held two events this week. One, a vigil in Geneva for 370 colleagues killed in Gaza. (Management blocked a similar one in New York.) The other an internal union meeting on how to apply the new due diligence procurement policy in light of a report by Francesca Albanese accusing many companies the UN works with of profiting from genocide. The event also discussed acceptable speech for UN staff. More in the union reply: https://lnkd.in/dKycVzCy Reuters covered the issue. Extracts below. Full article: https://lnkd.in/djxYsGRC. The United States and Israel have sent complaint letters to top United Nations officials contesting their staff's impartiality over the Gaza war, documents showed, as hundreds of them protested outside the global organization's European headquarters on Thursday. "Today, the U.N. staff are coming together to say that enough is enough, to say that we cannot kill our colleagues in Gaza with such impunity and to say stop to all these murders," Nathalie Meynet, president of the U.N. refugee agency staff council, told Reuters at the protest. A parallel vigil at the U.N. headquarters in New York was denied permission to proceed by management, according to a message from the organisers to U.N. staff seen by Reuters. Israel's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva Daniel Meron denounced the event ahead of it in a September 10 letter to Tatiana Valovaya, director-general of the United Nations' Geneva office. "U.N. staff are not activists or political actors, the letter said. "Those who incite and participate in such politically charged activities should face disciplinary measures, including suspension." Séverine Deboos, one of the event's organisers, denied that its purpose was political: "The message is in honour of our colleagues (in Gaza) and to thank them," she said. Several hundred people joined in the protest and a minute of silence in the bright Geneva sunshine outside the U.N. building. Earlier this week, a thousand U.N. employees joined an online briefing with Francesca Albanese, a U.N. independent expert whose criticism of Israel has led to U.S. sanctions. Both Israel's Meron and U.S. Charge d'Affaires Tressa Finerty complained to Valovaya about the call in a September 16 email. She added that the matter had also been raised with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. "This is a grave violation of the U.N.'s principle of neutrality on multiple levels," said Finerty. "If U.N. staff during the U.N. workday, using U.N. email addresses and U.N. computers on U.N.-supplied smartphones, participate in this Teams meeting, there can be no dodging the charge that the U.N. is systematically and uniquely anti-Israel and, because of that antisemitic." A staff union member confirmed the Albanese meeting but said it involved core U.N. work. The U.S. diplomatic mission in Geneva declined to comment.