Israel may cut off ties with OCHA if blacklisted by UN, Erdan warns

Israel could cut off ties with the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) if it is blacklisted for its treatment of Palestinian children, Israel’s Ambassador Gilad Erdan told The Jerusalem Post Annual Conference on Monday.

“There are agencies that are active in our region like OCHA that is in charge of supplying humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians,” Erdan said.

“Whenever they need to report and supply data, they distort the reality. Whatever the Palestinian Health Ministry reports, they take it for granted. Every terror attack we report, even rock throwing and Molotov cocktail throwing, they ignore it,” he said.

OCHA, Erdan charged, has not established a verification mechanism for the information supplied by Israel.

“We cannot continue collaborating with them while they supply member states at the UNSC such a distorted [reality]. They portray a different reality than the one that exists on the ground.

Erdan says government should stop giving visas to UN workers

“My recommendation to our government is to even stop issuing visas to new UN workers that come to Israel,” Erdan stated.

He spoke during an interview conducted by Senior Contributing Editor and Diplomatic Correspondent Lahav Harkov about his role in defending his country against anti-Israel bias at the United Nations in New York, specifically, his efforts to prevent Israel’s inclusion in the blacklist attached to the organization’s annual report on Children in Armed Conflict that is authored by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s office.

In such situations including this one, Erdan said, he goes on the offensive and tries to exact a heavy price.

“I tell the UN organizations and the Secretary-General if you are going to make such a terrible mistake” and to “compare our moral military to terror organization then the UN is going to pay a heavy price.

“Israel will have to cut off some of our ties and collaborations with UN agencies,” Erdan warned.