UN blames employee’s online anti-Israel rants on hackers

Pro-Hamas, anti-Israel social media posts by UN employee were the work of hackers, UN claims.

Susan Tawil, World Israel News

The United Nations is defending an employee accused of posting anti-Israel, pro-Hamas social media posts after October 7th, claiming the posts were the work of a hacker or group of hackers.

Lamia Burkart is an employee of the United Nations, working as a Social Media consultant for the UN’s Human Rights office.

Recently, a disturbing series of pro-Hamas, antisemitic tweets were posted under her name. When brought to their attention, the UN denied Burkart’s culpability, saying that her X (Twitter) account was hacked. Her account has since been deleted.

The whistleblower behind the revelation of Burkat’s posts, Khaled Hassan, has accused the UN of an institutional cover-up.

Burkart’s X account was filled with tweets comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, with postings such as: “DISMANTLE THE NAZI ISRAEL STATE NOW!” “We prefer Hamas to Israel 1,000 times,” and statements denying Hamas’ rape and murder of Israeli women during its heinous October 7 terrorist attack.

When Hassan countered Burkart’s vicious tweets, she accused him of being a paid shill for Israel and supporting genocide in Gaza, calling him a “despicable 3rd Reich agent.”

Hassan contacted the UN about the issue.

At first, UN officials claimed that Burkart did not have an X account, and asked Hassan to “urgently take down your tweets against her.”

Hassan questioned the UN’s contention and sent them copies of Burkart’s tweets.

The UN later recanted, saying that Burkart actually did have an account, but that it was hacked.

Hassan has subsequently asked why the UN hasn’t produced any evidence of this, as notifications of possible hacking are invariably sent to social media account holders. Both Burkart’s X account and her Linkedin account have been deleted.

The UN Code of Ethics states that: “United Nations personnel… shall ensure that expression of personal views and convictions does not compromise or appear to compromise the performance of their official duties…. They shall not act in a way that unjustifiably could lead to actual or perceived preferential treatment for or against particular individuals, groups or interests.”

The United Nations has long been accused of holding an anti-Israel bias. In 2023, the UN passed 14 resolutions condemning Israel, and seven for the entire rest of the world.

An amendment condemning the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and the abduction of over 200 hostages failed to pass in the UN General Assembly. Gilad Menashe Erdan, Israel’s representative to the UN, said the world has witnessed that the United Nations “no longer holds even one ounce of legitimacy or relevance.”