Israel launches PR war on UN report

Israeli officials embark on all-out effort in bid to undermine credibility of damning flotilla raid report

Yitzhak Benhorin|Published: 09.23.10 , 17:55

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has ordered the establishment of a "command post" in New York in an effort to counter a damning United Nations report on Israel's flotilla raid which left nine people dead.

The report, drafted by the UN Human Rights Council, charged that IDF soldiers executed Turkish activists on board a Gaza-bound vessel by firing at them from close range.

UN Report

UN experts: Flotilla raid 'incredibly violent'

Yitzhak Benhorin

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UN experts: Flotilla raid 'incredibly violent'

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, who is currently in New York, set up the command post along with Ambassador to the UN Meron Reuben and Consul General Ido Aharoni in order to coordinate Israel's diplomatic and PR activity in response to the report.

As of Thursday morning, Israeli officials are attempting to initiate a coordinated response by all Jewish organizations to condemn the UN report. All Israeli emissaries in North America had been briefed on their next moves vis-à-vis the media and foreign diplomats.

Ayalon: Report a despicable lie

Meanwhile, senior Israeli officials have been granting interviews to US media outlets throughout the day.

Elsewhere, Israel's delegation at the UN is formulating the Jewish state's diplomatic response, to be submitted to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as well as to major states whose heads are currently in New York for the annual UN General Assembly

Israel's embassy in Washington had been instructed to convey the Jewish state's messages to the US Administration, Congress, and to local Jewish organizations, in a bid to undermine the report's credibility.

In his US media appearances Thursday, Deputy Minister Ayalon said the UN report was a despicable lie from start to finish only aimed at harming Israel. He said the report would end up undermining its own authors as well as the Human Rights Council, arguing that the UN body is making itself irrelevant and requires dramatic reform.