In the News
JNS quoted B’nai B’rith International CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin in its coverage of a United Nations Mine Action Service member hospitalized in Israel who was found to have two prominent pro-Nazi tattoos.
A staff member at the United Nations Mine Action Service, who is currently hospitalized in Israel, was discovered to have two prominent pro-Nazi tattoos, a source with knowledge of the matter told JNS.
The employee, who was injured in a booby trap attack in Gaza, was first taken to a hospital in Gaza before being transferred to Israel for further care, JNS understands.
The United Nations has blamed Israel for the attack that injured the staffer, although the Jewish state doesn’t operate in that part of Gaza, and the attack was likely a trap set by Hamas, according to the source.
The man has a tattoo on an arm that states, in German in heavy black letters, “my honor is loyalty,” which the Anti-Defamation League describes as the motto of the Waffen SS.
“It is a reference to the organization’s loyalty to Adolf Hitler,” per the ADL website. “Since World War II, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists around the world use this German phrase, or its equivalent in English or other languages, as a hate slogan.”
On the other arm, apparently, the U.N. staffer has a large tattoo of the face of an SS soldier or officer, wearing a Nazi hat, sunglasses and a collar with apparent Nazi symbols.
It was not immediately clear if the staffer was alert and aware of his surroundings. It also was not immediately what the man’s current role is at the United Nations, although JNS understands that he is connected to the Mine Action Service.
“I’m aware of the tweet showing the tattoos,” Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, told JNS. “Don’t know anything further, including which person is involved.”
“Our focus right now us getting medical care for the wounded people,” Haq added.
Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, sent a letter to Guterres on Thursday demanding that the global body conduct a “thorough investigation.”
“Such antisemitic expressions are unacceptable,” the Israeli envoy said. “We request to know exactly what the U.N. will be doing to expunge blatant expressions of Jew-hatred among its employees.”
“As a representative of an international institution that had been established in the wake of World War II by the Allies to uphold international peace in a post-Nazi world, this is unacceptable and deeply concerning,” Danon wrote.
“As was said here, the discovery of these tattoos becomes part of a larger tableaux of anti-Israel, anti-Semitic activity in the U.N. system,” Daniel Mariaschin, the CEO of B’nai B’rith International, told JNS. “It is well long past time for the organization to forcefully and meaningfully address it.”
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