The UN Is Worse Than Useless

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OCHA is the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. According to their website:

…we bring the world together to tackle humanitarian emergencies and save the lives of people caught in crises.

We mobilize aid, share information, support humanitarian efforts, and advocate for crisis-affected communities.

OCHA is active in Gaza. You may recollect the infamous blood-libel (one of many it has to be said) about how 14,000 babies were going to die of starvation there. This was propagated by the head of OCHA, one Tom Fletcher.

Screenshot of a tweet reporting the false allegation by OCHA that 14,000 babies were going to die in 48 hours.

So, the head of a UN body put out false information that demonized the Jewish state. And what were the consequences for him? None.

What, unsurprisingly, makes it worse is that OCHA have form for lying. Yes, you read that correctly: OCHA tell lies.

For example, in OCHA’s Humanitarian Situation Update of October 2, it says that one million Gazans have access to less than 6 liters of water a day. According to COGAT (the Israeli organization responsible for Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories) this is an outright lie. The true average is dozens of liters of water a day, “based on water pipelines from Israel, a UAE waterline to the Mawasi, an Israeli electricity line supplying electricity to the desalination plant in Dier al Balah, another desalination plant and pumping facilities. The amount of water available in Gaza is well above the humanitarian minimum.”

Here’s another example from that October 2 update. OCHA report that in Gaza city the supply of cooked meals went down by 70%, with only 8 kitchens operating. Sounds bad, doesn’t it? However, OCHA lied by omission: something like 80% of the Gaza city population moved south (so no wonder supply went down!) and there was a matching rise in the opening of new kitchens there.

For COGAT’s complete skewering of OCHA’s October 2 Update, check out this post.

It is incontrovertible that OCHA is lying. Why do they do that? Why do they do that repeatedly? Why are there no consequences for this?

In my opinion, in the UN:

  • Nobody cares about truth.
  • It’s all about how things look, and it’s important to make Israel look bad.
  • The people in the top jobs get paid huge salaries. Lying – to make the situation seem worse – is a form of job protection for those working for aid agencies.
  • Antisemitism is rife.

As the inimitable Elder of Ziyon notes, the UN is worse than useless. OCHA is merely one weed among many.

[A tip of the hat to the Elder of Ziyon.]