Connie Hackbarth | AIC | 26 novembre 2012 | Judy Shalom Nir-Mozes, Chairwoman of UNICEF Israel, supported Israel’s Operation Pillar Defence against the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, an operation….
Connie Hackbarth | AIC | 26 novembre 2012 |
Judy Shalom Nir-Mozes, Chairwoman of UNICEF Israel, supported Israel’s Operation Pillar Defence against the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, an operation in which 27 percent of those killed and 35 percent of those injured in Gaza were children. Nir-Mozes on social media last week: “I love the sentence ‘they shoot on our children and hide behind their children’ – poor losers. Tell UNICEF that such a person cannot be an advocate for children’s rights.
Judy Shalom Nir-Mozes is the chairwoman of UNICEF Israel, the local branch of the United Nations Children’s Fund, the global body whose mission is “to help build a world where the rights of every child are realized.” UNICEF’s mission statement further adds that “We involve everyone in creating protective environments for children. We are present to relieve suffering during emergencies, and wherever children are threatened, because no child should be exposed to violence, abuse or exploitation.”
Active in social media, Nir-Mozes tweeted that she hoped there would be no ceasefire as the operation continued. “I really hope Bibi will not surrender to the pressures of our enemies and their lobby and will continue the operation until the murder of the last terrorist in Gaza. It is time that life in the [Israeli] south will start to be normal.”
Medical sources in the Gaza Strip report that during Operation Pillar of Defence, 27 percent of those killed and 35 percent of those injured in Gaza were children.
UNICEF issued a press release on November 16, two days after the start of Israel’s military attacks, calling on « children to be protected in Gaza and Israel. » The press release was issued by UNICEF world headquarters.
According to an article in the right-wing affiliated Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon, several progressive Israeli activists have launched a campaign to remove Nir Mozes from her position at UNICEF Israel. Ari Remez sent a letter to UNICEF, signed by additional Israeli activists, demanding that UNICEF stop employing Nir-Mozes, “a war hungry [person] who opposes a ceasefire cannot be an ambassador of children’s rights.”
Nir-Mozes was appointed Chairwoman of UNICEF Israel in January 2012. In an interview at this time with the Jerusalem Post, Nir-Mozes defined her new position as a double mission: “Be the voice of voiceless kids” but also provide positive public relations for the State of Israel.
“I take the UNICEF position as an opportunity for representing Israel in a positive light in many of the world’s most disadvantaged places,” Nir-Mozes told the paper. “I also know that in the end, those countries’ fingers at the UN are just like the fingers of any other country and it’s important that they like us and know we help them. It’s time that we make headlines for something good, she concluded.”
Makor Rishon noted that Nir-Mozes said in response that “the organization of UNICEF just like the entire people of Israel, denounced any attack on children. UNICEF takes care of children regardless of their origin, color, location of residency or who their parents are. That is our goal too as UNICEF Israel.”
Contact UNICEF: “a war-hungry person who opposes a ceasefire cannot be an ambassador of children’s rights” indeed!
Sarah Crowe, Spokesperson for the Executive Director,
Tel: +1 212 326 7206 / Mobile: + 1 646 209 1590
scrowe@unicef.org
Peter Smerdon, UNICEF New York,
Tel: + 1 212 303 7984 / Mobile: + 1 917 213 5188,
psmerdon@unicef.org
UNICEF has a Twitter account to where you may post comments: #UNICEF
UNICEF on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/unicef