Alice Wairimu Nderitu, the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres, is apparently being forced out of office after refusing to categorize Israel’s counterterrorism campaign in the Gaza Strip as genocide.
Nderitu, a Kenyan national serving as the Special Adviser since November 2020, was notified by the UN that her contract will not be renewed, seemingly following her refusal to classify the IDF’s maneuvers in Gaza as genocide, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal charged.
In a piece published Monday, The WSJ editorial board wrote that the UN “long ago lost credibility as a moral arbiter, but its assault on Israel is hitting a new low, as on Wednesday the UN will refuse to renew Nderitu’s contract because “she has stood firm in her belief that Israel’s war with Hamas isn’t genocide.”
In a 2022 paper, Nderitu explains that the term “genocide” was coined in 1944 by Jewish-Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin to describe massacres of entire ethnic groups with the intention of eliminating them, following the Holocaust.
“As a legal matter, establishing a pattern of violence as a genocide requires demonstrating intent. Israel’s campaign of self-defense doesn’t qualify. The war against Hamas has had many deaths, but Israel’s strategy is intended to dismantle a terrorist regime, not eliminate an ethnic group,” the WSJ noted.
“The Jewish state has gone to great lengths to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties, even as Hamas uses civilians as shields so their deaths can be used as propaganda,” the piece underscored.
However, the editorial board pointed out, “that’s not what the anti-Israel cabal at the UN want to hear.”
On November 14th, the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices issued a report supporting accusations of genocide. The report alleged it had found “serious concerns of breaches of international humanitarian and human rights laws” and “the possibility of genocide in Gaza.”
Nderitu has apparently refused to ratify these assertions.
While Guterres — who was declared persona non grata in Israel in October following his anti-Israel and antisemitic stances in the past year — has the authority to extend Nderitu’s contract, he did not do so and Nderitu’s removal “is a political choice,” the WSJ said.
“The damage here includes defining genocide down,” and “the word has become a weapon of political propaganda that will erode its moral authority when it’s needed to describe genuine horrors,” the paper cautioned.
“Ms. Nderitu may be out, but her refusal to endorse a lie in service of a political agenda has been a profile in courage. Can anyone with integrity survive at the UN?”
Guterres has repeatedly denounced the IDF’s military actions against terror organizations and essentially justified the October 7th terror attacks when he said that it “did not happen in a vacuum” and that Hamas had a reason to massacre, burn and rape Israeli men, women, and children.
