Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/gaza1unclarity020509.html
UNITED NATIONS, February 5 -- Despite a widespread perception, created in part by the UN, that the civilians killed by a June 6 shelling by the Israeli Defense Forces in Jabaliya were inside a school run by the UN Relief and Works Agency, the UN has since had to issue a "clarification" that the shelling was entirely outside of the school. Inner City Press on Thursday asked UNRWA's John Ging if he has re-thought any of his public statements in the bombing's wake, for example that "those in the school were all families seeking refuge." Video here, from Minute 30:31.
Ging responded that he wouldn't change a word he'd said, and instead blamed the Globe and Mail newspaper for a "sensationalist headline." Ging said that "all reputable media" -- he listed the New York Times, the Jerusalem Post, the Guardian -- had "gotten it right." But the Jerusalem Post article, for example, "noted that in two previous reports, the UN had stated that the IDF attack had been against the school and not outside the school." Ging's UN colleague Chris Gunness has accused the Jerusalem Post of misquoting him.
During the hot-phase of the conflict, Ging and the UN bemoaned the absence of international media from the conflict zone. As one wag put it Thursday, be careful what you wish for. Beyond the mis-statement in the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs January 7 report, the UN said nothing as the incident was widely described as a bombing of a UN school.
In fact, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on January 17 said "Today, another United Nations school was hit by Israeli Defense Forces. I condemn in the strongest terms this outrageous attack which is the third time this has happened." This quote is on the UN's own ReliefWeb, here.
Then a quiet "clarification" in a UN Field Report:
Clarification: While correctly reported on 6 January that Israeli shells landed outside an UNRWA school in Jabalia, resulting in an initial estimate of 30 fatalities, the Situation Report of 7 January referred to ‘the shelling of the UNRWA school in Jabalia.’ The Humanitarian Coordinator would like to clarify that the shelling, and all of the fatalities, took place outside rather than inside the school.
One might have thought, given the controversy, that Ging would address it in his opening statement to the UN press corps on Thursday. He did not. Upon questioning, he acknowledged that the school was not hit, except by shrapnel, and that the school was not damaged. That was not the perception, and from this perspective the Globe and Mail is to be congratulated for dogged reporting, not denounced as "unreputable" by the UN. Click here for a more recent Globe and Mail story quoting the UN on the disappearance of its stealth envoy to Niger, the Canadian Robert Fowler.
In fairness, the UN also mis-lead the press, or allowed misleading stories to stand uncorrected, earlier in the conflict when the UN's John Holmes equated civilian casualties with only those who were children and women (of the latter group, he said that they too might be with Hamas). How ever begrudgingly, Holmes acknowledged the controversy and amended his reporting, without denouncing the media which called him on it. Ging has been working hard, but attacking the press, or particular reporters, for zeroing in on inconsistencies would put Ging more squarely in the UN spin mold than has been the case so far.
And see, www.innercitypress.com/gaza1unclarity020509.html
