By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, September 25 -- It is difficult to present economic relations between Israel and Palestine as positive and upbeat. But after the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee met on Wednesday and took a mere two questions from the media, that was the spin.
Inner City Press was there, hand-raised, to asked about the $300 million dispute about tax revenue. But Norway, whose outgoing minister Espen Barth Eide led off the press conference, took only two question. The first, an absurd softball, was automatically given to the UN Correspondents Association, represented by its 2013 president Pamela Falk of CBS.
Rather than asking about the obvious fiscal problems, she accepted the positive spin and asked about politics which was not answer. The second and final questioner was sharper, zeroing in on Norway's recent election -- but Norway chafed at that.
This all made ever more clear: the politicized UNCA Executive Committee should not automatically be given the first question. But the UN Department of Public Information's Stephane Dujarric, when the new Free UN Coalition for Access @FUNCA_info challenged the UNCA role in Francois Hollande's September 24 press conference cum propaganda fest, replied:
"As a courtesy to their large traveling press corps which had to move quickly from the North Lawn Building to the Secretariat for Pres. Hollande's press conference, we allowed the French Delegation to reserve a number of seats. The press briefing room was indeed 'standing room only,' but in the end you and other UN press corps members all had seats. I also note that a number of UN correspondents, affiliate with UNCA and FUNCA, were able to ask questions of the President."
This answer was insufficient, even as to France. But as to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee on Wednesday, it was clearly bogus: there was UNCA's propagandistic Falk, who twice invited Saudi-sponsored Syria "rebel" boss Jarba for a fauxUN briefing, then a sharper but openly pro-Israel question.
(Inner City Press has asked Dujarric if Jarba at UNCA could be called a UN briefing, a question like spying he refuses to answer.)
UNCA for whatever reason canceled its planned second faux UN briefing for Jarba, postponed from September 25 to 26, then canceled. But Dujarric must still answer, on why the many UN correspondents not members of UNCA can't schedule events in what should be the UN Press Club, and why he accepted leaked internal UNCA anti-Press documents from UNCA's first vice president Louis Charbonneau of Reuters. Watch this site.
