In January, The Wall Street Journal made an explosive claim: Quoting “intelligence reports,” the paper reported that not only had 12 members of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, taken part in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, but 10% of the relief agency’s 12,000 workers in Gaza had ties to militant groups.
The New York Times on Jan. 28 had published a detailed story about 12 workers who aided in the Oct. 7 attacks, followed by the Journal’s broader piece about UNRWA staff’s alleged links to Hamas — a one-two punch that had an immediate impact on the agency. More than a dozen countries including Germany and Britain froze funding to UNRWA, stalling a total of $450 million. It was a massive scandal that put the organization, the main conduit for aid to Gaza, on the defensive.
But months later, the paper’s top editor overseeing standards privately made an admission: The paper didn’t know — and still doesn’t know —whether the allegation, based on Israeli intelligence reports, was true.
Yeah I remember this one. The “intelligence dossier” was just the same claims Israel was making publicly without additional evidence. Now maybe it’s all true, but clearly most media outlets implied there was stronger evidence than actually existed. UK’s Channel 4 was the exception.
Original Channel 4 video which shows the actual dossier which is just a list of the people Israel was accusing: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tqG2yeF_4sg
The Colonna report found there was no evidence to the israeli claims.
Israel gave no evidence UNRWA staff linked to ‘terrorism’: Colonna report
Report from former French foreign minister finds Israel has not backed up claims it made against refugee agency operating in Gaza.
Which really makes you question why Wall Street Journal and New York Times published their headlines after seeing the israeli report.
I would question what “ties to militant groups” actually defines.
Is it active support of known Hamas-members? Or is it more like aidworkers giving school supplies to the school of the daughter of the 3rd cousin of the brother-in-law’s grandmothers brother, who once had tea with someone who might be a Hamas member?
Because Gaza is contained in itself and not big to begin with. Everybody is connected somehow. And if you count indirect contact as “ties to militant groups” you could easily get to 10%.
This number, even if true, doesn’t mean anything without definition.
When I did development work in Cambodia, I had contact with several former Khmer Rouge. They are part of the population. That doesn’t mean I was connected to their genocide.
To be clear their claims were not just about ties to militant groups, the big claim was that 12 UNRWA employees took part in the raid Which turned out to be without evidence.
In the original six-page dossier, seen by Al Jazeera, Israeli intelligence provided a number of accusations against UNRWA without evidence, including that the agency’s facilities had been used by Hamas in its October attack. Moreover, according to the dossier, 12 staff members had participated directly in the attack, with 190 others offering intelligence and logistical support. In March, the Israeli military claimed it had evidence implicating four more UNRWA staff members.
A more detailed report produced by the Nordic research groups supporting Colonna wrote: “Israeli authorities have to date not provided any supporting evidence nor responded to letters from UNRWA in March, and again in April, requesting the names and supporting evidence that would enable UNRWA to open an investigation.”
But even then, they accused 10% of 12,000 aidworkers. Thats 1,200 people. What are the ties of the other 994 aidworkers who supposedly are involved?
The ones they listed there are less than 2% of aidworkers.
Maybe there were Hamas collaborators within the aid agency, you always have black sheep or infiltrators who join with an ulterior motive. But 10% is whole other ballpark. A ballpark that eliminates your funding as we have seen.
For me, that was a targeted attack by Israeli inteligence using the media to stave out the civilian population of Gaza. Specifically aimed at the weak and vulnerable part of the population.
Of course I agree. The problem is that these propaganda outlets will worm themselves out of the allegations by claiming plausible deniability on what constitutes “connections to Hamas”.
The reason it’s easier to hammer on the allegations of the 12 employees participating in the attack is because it is a very concrete claim that leaves no wiggle room. Either they have evidence or they lied for israel.
Israel are lying liars and my country believes and promotes their lies.
Israel lied again and American audience larped it up.??
Shocker!
All aid workers around the world don’t have a choice but to collaborate with ‘militant groups’, gangs, dictators, mafia, warlords, cartels… if they have to make a deal with the devil himself to be able to help some children be damned sure they’re gonna.
Having their ranks infiltrated is nothing new to aid orgs either (remember that sexual abuse scandal not long ago) or any other organization really, specially those that try to do good. Cutting the aid because an organization isn’t perfectly invulnerable is imo utterly stupid.
So I don’t care much for those proofs, as I think the facts are most certainly true (to a degree) but NORMAL. The way they are interpreted and used as an excuse to cut the aid is absolute bullshit.
In this case they never collaborated with Hamas though. It’s pretty wild that despite a thorough investigation of UNRWA basically nothing came up.
I meant ‘collaborate’ as in having talks or meetings, paying a ‘tax’, playing by their rules… nothing that leaves much of a record.
‘Ties with militant groups’ is vague enough so many people will read ‘on the terrorists’ payroll’. And on time some ‘proof’ like phone calls, pictures in the same place with a ‘militant group’ member, or handing them some material aid, going to the same mosquee…
The thing is unless they’re able to articulate more concrete accusations I wouldn’t even ask for proof, proof of what? I mean I have a bunch of cousins I barely met when I was a child, and no clue what they’ve been up to these ~30 years… I might have some ‘ties’ to ‘militant groups’ too, who knows?
True. But in this case they alleged 12 UNRWA members to have participated in the attack as well. Which is more than just a vague claim but a very specific one. So now we can demand NYT and WSJ proof for their claims.
Yeah we should expect proof of this kind of claims, having to demand it only shows how low the bar is. But even IF they can prove it, and that’s a big if, twelve people among such a massive organization would still be a nothingburger unless they’ve infiltrated the highest ranks.
Some more lines from the article about the NYT and WSJ defense:
“The fact that the Israeli claims haven’t been backed up by solid evidence doesn’t mean our reporting was inaccurate or misleading, that we have walked it back or that there is a correctable error here,” Elena Cherney, the chief news editor, wrote in an email earlier this year seen by Semafor.
That one of the paper’s biggest and most impactful stories about the war was based on information it could not verify is a startling acknowledgement, and calls into question the validity of the claims as reported in the Journal. The piece had major reverberations internally and raised serious concerns among some staff. According to three people familiar with the situation, since the story was published earlier this year, reporters have tried and failed to corroborate the 10% claim at the center of the story. Journalists working on the Middle East coverage for the Journal have also since raised concerns about elements of the paper’s coverage of the war more broadly that some feel tip too heavily toward Israel.
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Information for Semafor:
MBFC: Least Biased - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - United States of America
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