Badwill Ambassador: Honorary chair of Israeli Fund for UNICEF wants Palestinian children to “suffer”

Ali Abunimah Rights and Accountability 1 December 2012

Two boys standing in the middle of rubble

Honorary chair of Israeli Fund for UNICEF says Palestinian children, like these ones standing amid rubble of a destroyed school in Gaza, “are fed hatred towards Israel from the moment they are born.”

Ashraf Amra APA images

Palestinian rights campaigners are demanding the removal of Judy Shalom Nir-Mozes from the position of honorary chairwoman of the Israeli Fund for UNICEF, the United Nations’ Children’s Fund, over racist and violent comments she has made.

“During the latest Israeli attacks on Gaza, Shalom Nir-Mozes made several shockingly racist comments about Palestinians and Palestinian children,” the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) said in an action alert, urging people to write to UNICEF “asking them to remove Judy Shalom Nir-Mozes as the chairwoman of the Israeli Fund for UNICEF (IFU) and censure IFU for selecting someone so poorly suited to represent their work for children around the world.”

As MECA notes, Shalom Nir-Mozes, who is the wife of Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, has recently said:

  • “How is it possible to make peace with people whose children are fed hatred towards Israel from the moment they are born? How is it possible to make peace with people who have it as part of their DNA to hate us? I am willing to make real peace at any price. The problem is that there is no partner. I wish I was wrong.”

  • “Bibi [Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister], is right, I liked when he said ‘They shoot at our children and hide behind their children,’ the miserable losers. Bad enough they ruin our kids’ childhoods, I don’t understand how parents of children in Gaza allow those murderers to destroy their children.”

  • She additionally spoke out against a ceasefire saying “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.”

Earlier this year, during a previous Israeli upsurge of killing in Gaza, Shalom Nir-Mozes demanded that “It’s time even for the passive residents of Gaza to suffer the way the residents of the south are suffering.”

UNICEF distances itself but fails to take action

In recent days, UNICEF has responded to an outcry over the appointment of Shalom Nir-Mozes, who will be perhaps the most prominent face associated with the organization in Israel. In response to a letter from an Israeli activist, UNICEF wrote, according to Haaretz:

“These views do not reflect the views of UNICEF. Judy Shalom Nir Mozes has recently been appointed by the Board of the Israeli Fund for UNICEF (IFU) as the ‘Honorary Chair of the Annual General Meeting.’ This is a voluntary function and as such, Ms. Mozes is not an employee of the IFU. The IFU is an independent non-governmental organization, which helps mobilize funds to support UNICEF programs around the world. The Chairman of the IFU is Moriel Matalon.

This is clearly not enough. A woman who incites violence and hatred against children anywhere has no role in an international organization whose mission is to fight for the rights, well-being and health of children everywhere.

UNICEF is famous for its celebrity Goodwill Ambassadors who include actors Mia Farrow, Susan Sarandon and footballer David Beckham.

Perhaps UNICEF can now create a new category of Badwill and Incitement Ambassadors especially for Ms. Shalom Nir-Mozes?

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Comments

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ajamu chaminuka replied on

the relevant U.N. organizations should be severely criticised for having such a person involved in a world body. shame on whoever appointed her and that person should go also!

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Fernando de Sousa Falcão replied on

I fully agree. This character should not be part of UNICEF or or any other similar organization.

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Surya Dharma replied on

Good Lord. O, the ugliness that rears its head from the heart thru' the mouth! Badwill ambassador indeed. And from one named Mrs. Shalom, no less. How ironic.
Mind the children please.

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Ignacio Mendez replied on

She should be inmediately removed from any Human Rights Organization and processed for racism and hatred to children.

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Oline Wright replied on

okay not to defend the woman but of the quoted statements only the first could indeed be seen as against children. The second statement decries the use by terrorists of children as shields and wonders how the parents can allow it. The third is calling for the destruction of the terrorist completely something that cannot be done. However the first one is damning enough. Children have to be taught to hate it is not inborn. however keep in mind many of the people living in the battle field of the Gaza strip have little or no choice in the matter. They will likely be killed by either side. all for a strip of land that likely cannot now support the life on it.
I would say since she does not know when to keep her tongue still perhaps she is the wrong choice to represent the organization.

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Isam Kamel replied on

It is not the first time in history where ugly bad minded people used the term to dehumanize the others. It was the Nazis as well who said the DNA of the Jew... are this and that...
This is an arrogant and very cheap statement which positions her and Israel at the right place which has no eligibility and is not qualified to exist in its current form.

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Ignacio replied on

It is the Israeli army who uses palestinian children and civilians as shields when they enter Palestinian land.
Hamas are not the terrorists, they are Gaza's army defending their territory as well as they can.
And remember, the southern cities of Israel were populated by palestinians who were massacred or had to flee from the israeli terrorist and criminal occupation.

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lidia replied on

That is, it is OK to be a gross racist, but one needs to pretend better?
And, by the way, nice try to equalize between colonial Zionists and Palestinian resistance as "either side". NO, oh defender of racists, Palestinians are MUCH more likely to be murdered by Zionists, but to defender of racist Zionists it is not important.

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David Evans replied on

If I were a Palestinian child I wouldn't need anyone to "feed me hatred" as my friends and family members were murdered and had their neighborhoods destroyed by Israelis. I would, I think, just automatically hate such a monstrous people who did this to me.

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Jamie replied on

The head of UNICEF globally is a political appointee in the gift of the US President. That person is not necessarily chosen on the basis of his / her track record of concern for children. Political considerations often dominate the choice. Therefore, we should hardly be surprised to find in Israel a person such as this in a figurehead role for the national UNICEF organisation. Moreover, her views are fairly representative of much of Israeli public opinion shaped, as it is, by wilful ignorance, prejudice and a tribal mentality. Yes, this woman is a disgrace but so is much of the nation she represents and, in many ways, the organisation of which she is now some kind of figurehead.

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Jamie replied on

I would suggest that the colonial and apartheid actions are borne of a tribal mentality that divides humanity into Jews and non-Jews, seeing only the former as fully human and worthy of consideration. As we saw yet again in the recent attacks on Gaza even Palestinian children do not merit concern when Jewish Israeli children are seen as at threat. Colonialism and apartheid are relatively easy to overcome - as history has shown - compared to the tribalism rampant in Israel and amongst that country's supporters.

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BootoeShalom replied on

so, a UNICEF member says it's ok for palestinian children to be killed but not jewish children.. ..indeed spoken like a true zionist.. How is it even possible a zionist is in UNICEF?

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Joseph Tillotson replied on

The Palestinian children do not have to be taught to hate the Zionist. Merely waking up in their bombed out homes, walking their streets destroyed by missles, observing their parents, siblings, friends ...being brutalized by a bored IDF soldier should be enough to ignite a white hot fury among normal humans who believe that alll of God's children should be able to live with freedom and dignity, safe and secure.

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John D replied on

Ian Smith (Leader of the Rhodesia Front Party) was the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia, who - like David Ben Gurion before him in 1948 - issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in 1965 when setting up the illegitimate state of Rhodesia. While Zionist Israel today is clearly a de facto state - like Rhodesia in 1965 - Israel still fails to achieve the status of a de jure state today in the eyes of many around the world. Israel cannot ever be considered to be a legitimate state for as long as it fails to achieve a juridicial acceptance around the world. While it continues its illegal occupation and repression of Palestine, it will never ever be considered legitimate. It is and will remain a bastard state for all time.

Ali Abunimah

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.

Also wrote One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Opinions are mine alone.