Although new Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has acted to remove the official report that sparked controversy by calling Israel an “apartheid state”, a new report reveals that dozens of references to the outrageous claim that Israel is an apartheid state can be found on official UN sites and pages. A letter on the subject was even sent to Guterres himself calling for the removal of these publications.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has recently sworn in a new executive secretary to head the ESCWA organization- the UN’s regional commission for Western Asia, which has 18 member states and is headquartered in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. The commission has continuously avoided granting Israel membership since it was first established four decades ago.
A report by the non-governmental watchdog organization UN Watch found that on many official pages affiliated with ESCWA there are still countless references to the Israeli “apartheid regime”: on web pages, in Facebook posts and in tweets posted by the commission on Twitter.
The organization has found over 20 references still proudly displayed that allude to this outrageous and unapproved claim, most particularly on the organization’s official Facebook page. The report also included a description of a speech given on March 6, 2017, by who was then the commission’s executive secretary, Rima Khalaf, at an official event of the organization in Beirut in honor of International Women’s Day. In the Arabic transcription of her speech, which still appears on the official website of ESCWA, Khalaf goes off on a long tirade against Israel, during which she makes use of the term “Israeli apartheid regime.” Her claims were met with no protest in a room full of UN officials.
