The photo exhibit “Gaza, Palestine: A Crisis of Humanity, a Cry for Justice” in the lobby of United Nations headquarters in Manhattan includes images of demolished buildings, displaced civilians, maimed children and corpses. It mentions neither Hamas nor the terror group’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in southern Israel that launched the war upon which the exhibit focuses.
“This was written by the Palestinian mission to the United Nations and in this long, long text, you won’t find the word ‘Hamas’ in it,” Jonathan Harounoff, international spokesman for Israel’s mission to the global body, told JNS. “You won’t find any mention of the perpetrators of the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.”
“It’s very selective in the history it is trying to portray, and the exhibit includes graphic imagery of everything that took place following Oct. 7, but they never mention what actually happened to lead to all of this,” Harounoff said.
Harounoff told JNS that the Jewish state isn’t engaged in the war “to bring suffering upon the people of Gaza.”
“That’s not its objective. Its objective is to prevent terrorist organizations like Hamas from terrorizing its people which it did when it infiltrated Israel on Oct. 7,” he said.
Harounoff pointed to a photograph by Yasser Qudih—whose presence during the Oct. 7 attacks has raised ethical questions—which depicts children holding empty bowls, hoping in vain for food, near Rafah. “It did not take long for the food to run out,” a caption states.
“Pictures like this in this exhibit, showcasing children who are starving and desperate for food, fail to mention that the reason the photographed children have no food is because Hamas terrorists continually loot aid in Gaza instead of feeding their own people,” Harounoff said.
The Israeli spokesman told JNS that other exhibits in the U.N. lobby tend to have highly visible signs with disclaimers stating that the United Nations does not necessarily share the views articulated in the exhibitions.
The Gaza photo exhibit, which is on view until Jan. 10 and is organized by the Palestinian “permanent observer” mission to the global body, has no such sign.
Harounoff showed JNS another exhibit in the U.N. lobby about the Palestinian Red Crescent.
“The content of this exhibit is solely the responsibility of the sponsor. The holding of the exhibit on the U.N. premises does not imply endorsement or acceptance of its content by the United Nations” the sign states. “The designations employed and the presentation of material on these displays do not imply the expression of any opinion on the part of the secretariat or the United Nations. Please direct any queries to the organizers.”
The Gaza exhibit “has only a very small footnote saying the U.N. doesn’t necessarily share the viewpoints of the exhibit organizer,” Harounoff said. “But when the Israeli mission held an exhibit featuring Israeli mothers speaking about the loss of their children due to the war, we were told that by protocol we had to have a large sign letting the public know this exhibit reflected our mission’s views alone.”
That double standard suggests that the United Nations endorses the messaging behind the Gaza exhibit, according to Harounoff.
“This exhibit does not paint a full picture here. We don’t see mention of what happened on Oct. 7, we only see what took place from a very biased angle,” he said. “So the concern is, does having no disclaimer mean that this is an endorsement by the United Nations?”
“If there was a sign here then there would be transparency, where I could infer as a visitor that this is not condoned by the United Nations,” he added. “By not having a sign, you’re creating a sort of opaque system, where anyone passing by can assume that this has been endorsed by or even curated by the United Nations, and that is not necessarily the case.”
Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, stated that the Gaza exhibit represents “diplomatic terrorism.”
“This week, a one-sided pro-Palestinian exhibition that is detached from reality opened at the main entrance to the U.N.,” he said. “When will the U.N. stop spending millions of dollars on spreading lies and instead pass a moral resolution that condemns Hamas and calls for the release of our hostages? Disgraceful.” JNS