Sarah Douglas, UN Women’s Deputy Chief of Peace and Security, scrubbed her social-media account after a United Nations watchdog group revealed that she endorsed 153 anti-Israel posts on X.
Screenshots catalogued by UN Watch show that Douglas liked a number of posts that accused Israel of genocide. One post was a Jewish Voices for Peace tweet that accused the U.S. of “arming the genocide in Gaza.” Another was a post from the Palestinian Feminine Collective that said “we are currently witnessing all the forces of empire team up to annihalate [sic] the Palestinian people and struggle for freedom.”
Douglas liked posts by Democratic “Squad” members, including a post by Rashida Tlaib claiming that “Israel is starving Gaza,” a post by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that called on the U.S. to condition aid to Israel, and an Ayanna Pressley post that was critical of Israel and called for a “#CeasefireNow.”
When the official spoke at a U.N. event last week via Zoom, a “Palestine” poster decorated with the colors of the Palestinian flag was featured in her background.
“Sarah Douglas, the Deputy Chief of Peace and Security at UN Women, should be fired for her blatant and systematic violations of the the UN’s minimal requirements of neutrality and impartiality,” Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, said.
It took UN Women months to condemn Hamas’s gender-based violence against women. The organization finally admitted in December that Hamas perpetrated specific attacks against Israeli women, only after Israeli women’s organizations conducted a weeks-long international pressure campaign.
Douglas published an article exploring “What would a UN Feminist Agenda look like?” in 2017. In it, she wished for “strengthened recognition of the role of women’s organizations in reaching gender equality.” Many UN Women-backed feminist groups have either been silent on Hamas’s violence against women, or have staunchly denied Israel’s statehood since the Jewish state was attacked on October 7.
One such feminist organization is Code Pink, which blames the “Israeli Apartheid” for Hamas’s terror attack. Douglas also endorsed a Code Pink post that applauded pro-Palestinian protesters in Chicago for shutting down a highway.
“Despite decades of commitments, resolutions and platforms adopted by the world body, women and girls around the world continue to suffer from violence, exclusion, and discrimination, including within the corridors of the U.N. itself,” Douglas wrote in 2017. “Hard won gains for women rights are facing backlash all over the world. The U.N. Feminist Network, which brings together feminists working across the U.N. system and civil society activists that work closely with us, believes that the U.N. can and should do much more to walk its own talk on gender equality and women’s rights.”
The U.N. official’s account was deactivated as of Monday.