A United Nations body in the West Bank was engulfed in controversy yesterday after leaked emails revealed that a top staffer had promoted a speaking event by an academic who supports economic warfare against Israel. A double-bylined Jerusalem Post expose by Jonny Paul and Benjamin Weinthal disclosed that Ray Dolphin, an employee at the U.N. Office of the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the West Bank, circulated details of the event, which was hosted by the U.K.-funded Kenyon Institute:

In March, the Kenyon Institute, also known as the British School of Archaeology, hosted an event titled “The emergence of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement” – a campaign led by radical anti-Israel activists also known as BDS – at its East Jerusalem headquarters.

The institute is funded by the British Academy which in turn is funded by the British Government and questions have been raised as to why taxpayers have ultimately funded the controversial event.

Dolphin has produced a full book and multiple reports criticizing Israel for security measures designed to prevent Palestinian suicide bombers from attacking Israeli civilians. A source for the Jerusalem Post outlined how Dolphin’s OCHA organization “burn[s] the candle at both ends – generating materials for anti-Israel activists and then amplifying… activists who use the materials.”

Charles Tannock, a Member of the European Parliament, told The Jerusalem Post: “I totally oppose the promotion, by a UK taxpayer-funded organization such as the British Academy, of events which aim to promote a ‘campaigning boycott, divestment and sanctions’ anti- Israel event which is aimed at sanctioning a close friend of the UK and a democracy such as Israel.”

“It’s equally unacceptable a UN official should be promoting this event through his official email address suggesting possible UN endorsement of this message.”

“The Israeli Foreign Ministry should raise this urgently with the British Ambassador to explain how this happened,” he said.

A report by the Simon Wiesenthal Center has described the boycott movement against Israel as a “thinly-veiled, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic ‘poison pill,’ whose goal is the demonization, delegitimization, and ultimate demise of the Jewish State.”

[Photo: socialistalternative / flickr]