UN McCain under Degrading US Foreign Policy

NYC 4.44pm

Cindy Lou McCain, the executive director of the Rome-based World Food Program, met with some of her staff online, taking questions and hearing comments from an office in Jordan regarding her recent responses to the Israel-Hamas conflict and the agency’s work and her role in the crisis.

McCain held the meeting on Nov. 30 with select agency members in the Middle East, responding to a range of criticisms about her actions — perceived or otherwise — amid the conflict in Gaza.

The criticisms included McCain’s participation in the Halifax International Security Forum, held Nov. 17-19 in Nova Scotia, where the annual prize for Leadership in Public Service, named after John McCain, her deceased husband, was presented to the “People of Israel.”

A woman who works for the World Food Program’s Gaza office asked, amid tears at the meeting with McCain, referring to the “unspeakable horrors” the staff had endured: “Where were you? We had neither your presence, nor your action and not even your voice for Gaza.”

To which McCain replied: “I’ve been in this region nonstop since the day this war started. I’ve spent countless days here, countless hours here, dealing with absolutely everything I could to make sure that No. 1 we could get access to El-Arish airport [in Egypt].”

McCain, a high-profile American, was previously the ambassador to the United States mission to UN agencies in Rome. She is also the widow of US Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, who was a presidential candidate and died in 2018. She has been the executive director of the sprawling World Food Program since April 5, 2023.

In the tense, online meeting, McCain said in response to criticism about her participating in the Halifax forum that she attended for her husband’s “legacy.” She also said she was there for Ukraine. (The forum’s agenda featured panel events labeled “Victory in Ukraine.”)

“I was merely there as a woman who was married to my late husband for 40 years and who supports his legacy,” McCain said. “That is all. I remained neutral the entire time.” Yet she was identified in the program as head of the World Food Program.

In further response to McCain’s choice of language around the Gaza conflict and her attendance in Halifax, McCain interrupted and said, raising her voice and becoming emotional: “I will always support the legacy of my husband. No one will ever take that away from me. . . . I will never, I will never, ever, not support my husband.”

After another tense exchange during which McCain and a colleague next to her in the conference room tried to end the meeting, the person expressing the staff’s concern with McCain’s behavior, added: “If you cannot see that the reputation of WFP has been affected, I’m sorry, with all due respect, you’re mistaken. We’re seeing it in the faces of our family members.”

McCain also reportedly didn’t attend the UN’s global minute of silence held on Nov. 13 to honor the at least 100 staffers — all Palestinian — who have been killed in the war since it began on Oct. 7, when Hamas massacred approximately 1,200 people, including children, in southern Israel. In Gaza, the number of people killed is to be 23,000, of which at least 9,000 are children and 4,600 - 4,700 are women.

With gargantuan civilian killed but only 13 HAMAS killed, explains why "Israel is losing this war". As the saying goes, war is politics by other means and, whilst Hamas may be weakened militarily, Israel is clearly losing the long-term political battle (bringing part of the West down with them).

In the Nov. 30 meeting, McCain denied that she missed the minute of silence, saying: “You’re wrong. I did.”

“I chose to do the minute of silence by the wall,” she added. “Which is the place that I’ve gone every other time I’ve been in there to commemorate and look and think about the people who’ve given their lives to WFP. So I was there. You just didn’t see it, I guess. I’m not sure.”

Her reference to “WFP” people who’ve “given their lives” in the conflict may be misleading: the people who have been killed and memorialized by the UN worked for the organization’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa).

Antonio Guterres / António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres GCC GCL (/ɡʊˈtɛrəs/, European Portuguese: [ɐ̃ˈtɔnju ɣuˈtɛʁɨʃ]; UN secgen

Philippe Lazzarini (born 1964) is a national of Switzerland and Italy who has been serving as Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) since 2020

UNRWA Gaza building:

Plestia Alaqad