Amid funding cuts and calls for reform, critics are scrutinizing the United Nations’ Department of Global Communications (DGC) for alleged anti-Israel bias. Experts suggest the U.S. government should investigate the DGC’s role in disseminating what they claim is anti-Israel propaganda.
Hugh Dugan, former National Security Council Special Assistant, stated that the U.N.’s messaging continues to be inefficient, highlighting a “liquidity crisis.”
The DGC is responsible for press support, the U.N. Dag Hammarskjöld Library, global information centers, and the U.N.’s Twitter presence. An independent review of the Department’s activities is planned for this year.
Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, urged the U.S. to examine the DGC’s funding, asserting that the U.N. is a hub for disinformation, producing “lies, hate speech, incitement to violence, and antisemitism” that are “out-of-control.”
Bayefsky argued that the U.N. itself poses a threat to world peace, discourse, and human rights, claiming its information environment has negatively influenced generations of Americans.
A February report highlighted the DGC’s focus on Israel, noting its detailed crisis communications cell for “Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory” compared to brief descriptions of cells for disasters in Haiti, Sudan, and Ukraine.
The Department stated that the Israel/Palestinian Territory crisis required “strong messaging” to maintain international support for the U.N.’s work and that the cell analyzed “information integrity risks” such as misinformation.
In 2024, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) faced scrutiny regarding alleged ties between its leaders/members and terrorism, as well as hateful content in its curricula.
Digital requested clarification from U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Communications Melissa Fleming about the department’s claims of misinformation and the need for “strong messaging.”
Fleming explained the Department needed to “clearly explain the role” of the U.N. and its agencies, and analyze “information environments” to identify risks to the U.N.’s work.
Dugan, a former advisor to U.S. ambassadors to the U.N., expressed concern about “special treatment” given to the Gaza region in coverage, noting the absence of misinformation discussions regarding Haiti, Ukraine, and Sudan. He suggested this indicates U.N. involvement in propagandizing and controlling information flow.
When asked about the time allocated to different crisis cells, Fleming stated it depends on factors like the crisis’s scale, developments, international interest, and U.N. events, with more frequent meetings in the early stages.
Fleming said the “Israel-Occupied Palestinian Territory” cell has met weekly for about an hour since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks, similar to the Ukraine crisis’s frequency during the initial year of the Russian invasion.
Fleming did not specify the time devoted to the Haiti or Sudan cells, despite the organization’s report describing the Sudan situation as a “massive humanitarian crisis.”
In January, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that atrocities committed by warring parties in Sudan constituted genocide. Blinken described the death of tens of thousands of Sudanese, 30 million in need of aid, and 638,000 experiencing “the worst famine in Sudan’s recent history.”
Blinken asserted that the Sudanese rebel group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) “and RSF-aligned militias have continued to direct attacks against civilians, have systematically murdered men and boys — even infants — on an ethnic basis, and (have) deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence.”
The U.N.’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan, in September 2024, did not mention genocide, but reported “an appalling range of harrowing human rights violations and international crimes, including many which may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Conversely, the U.N. Special Committee to investigate Israeli practices declared in November 2024 that “Israel’s warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide, with mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians.”
Former national security advisor Jake Sullivan said last year that the Biden administration does “not believe what is happening in Gaza is a genocide.”
David May, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, stated that the focus on Gaza and an “imagined genocide” diverts attention from the “actual genocide” in Sudan. He accused the DGC of promoting a Palestinian narrative and acting as a pro-Palestinian U.N. body.
May noted that while the U.S. withholds funding from the U.N. for Palestinian-specific bodies, it doesn’t account for general carrying out an anti-Israel agenda.
Dugan expressed concern over the DGC’s emphasis on combating misinformation, arguing it expands its mandate beyond press relations and allows it to judge and control storylines deemed offensive by its employees.