Two Exhibits at U.N. 'Illustrate' Views There

UNITED NATIONS — Some diplomats are saying the placement of two photo exhibitions at the U.N. building illustrates the United Nations's priorities.

"Against the Odds: Lives of Palestinian Children," put on by the agency charged with aiding the Palestinian Arabs, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, has been given a prominent spot at the staff entrance of the U.N. building. Meanwhile, a photo show highlighting Russia's role in defeating the Nazis has been relegated to a corner on the building's first floor.

"This is typical of U.N. priorities," a Western diplomat who requested anonymity said. "Palestinians and their suffering trump anyone else's history."

The UNRWA exhibit, which illustrates the squalor of refugee camps around the Middle East, comes as Israel celebrates the 60th anniversary of its May 14, 1948, declaration of independence, which Arabs call their naqba, or "catastrophe."

"It is difficult to look at a frightened, tearful child and not be affected," Secretary-General Ban said last week at the opening of the exhibition. The photos show "scenes reminiscent of any American suburb," he said. "We are them, and they too are us."

While Israel officially supports UNRWA, the Jewish state's relationship with the agency has been uneasy at best. Last week, Israel killed a Gaza man, Awad al-Qiq, who worked for UNRWA as a teacher but whom the terrorist group Islamic Jihad also identified as one of its military leaders. UNRWA spokesmen, who said they had no evidence that Qiq was an Islamic Jihad bomb maker, denounced his "extrajudicial killing."

Israelis called the event the latest in a series of incidents in which the U.N. agency has employed combatants and allowed them to use its installations for military purposes.

Separately, a U.N. spokeswoman, Michele Montas, yesterday condemned the killing in Gaza on Thursday of a "mother of six and UNRWA schoolteacher," Wafa Shaker el-Daghma. UNRWA requested an "impartial investigation into the incident in a letter sent to the Israeli authorities," she said.

"We received no official communication" about the incident, an Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Daniel Carmon, said. "Completely unrelated to the alleged killing" of Daghma, "UNRWA needs to study the case of al-Qiq," he said. "He put on a costume of an UNRWA teacher, while at the same time — and we have no doubt about it — he served as an important player in the Islamic Jihad terrorist network. This raises important question marks about the U.N. agency's screening process."

The military al-Quds unit of Islamic Jihad identified Qiq on its Web site as a "martyr" of the organization. "It is not for us to confirm" whether he was a deputy commander of Islamic Jihad, a U.N. spokeswoman, Marie Okabe, said last week, after she confirmed that Qiq served as deputy headmaster at a UNRWA boys' preparatory school in Rafah.

"UNRWA booked the space" at the U.N. entrance "a long time ago" for its exhibition, the news and media director at the U.N. information department, Ahmed Fawzi, said. "Russia asked us to mount its exhibition a short time ago, and they agreed with the space we chose for them."