Badwill Ambassador: Honorary chair of Israeli Fund
for UNICEF wants Palestinian children to “suffer”
 Electronic Intifada, Dec 1 2012

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 UN Children’s Fund, over racist and violent comments she has made. The Middle East Children’s Alliance said in anaction alert:

During the latest Israeli attacks on Gaza, Shalom Nir-Mozes made several shockingly racist comments about Palestinians and Palestinian children. We urge readers to write to UNICEF asking them to remove Judy Shalom Nir-Mozes as the chairwoman of the Israeli Fund for UNICEF and censure it 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 PM Silvan Shalom, has recently said, among other things:

• 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 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.
• 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 south will start to be normal.”

Earlier this year, during a previous Israeli upsurge of killing in Gaza,Shalom Nir-Mozes said:

It’s time even for the passive residents of Gaza to suffer the way the residents of the south are suffering.

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, according to Haaretz, UNICEF wrote,:

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 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 NGO 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 Mia Farrow, Susan Sarandon and David Beckham. Perhaps UNICEF can now create a new category of Badwill and Incitement Ambassadors especially for Ms Shalom Nir-Mozes.