A controversial tweet from the United Nations’ official Twitter account backing a “1-state solution” to the Middle East crisis was the product of a nerdy hacker, not a typographical error, a spokeswoman at the United Nation’s press office at first told The Daily Caller.
In a subsequent interview, however, a sheepish U.N. employee admitted to making an embarrassing typo.
The hacker claim “was not true at all,” said U.N. spokeswoman Nancy Grove. “I did it. … It was my personal fault, and did not mean to suggest anything other than support for a two-state solution,” said Grove, a New Yorker.
The controversial tweet, which Twitter’s timeline reflected was sent at 2:00 p.m. EST, declared “On Day of Solidarity with Palestinians, Ban Ki-Moon stresses urgency of reaching 1-state solution.”
Ban Ki-Moon is the U.N.’s Secretary General.
“This is a fake tweet — it is not a U.N. tweet,” a spokeswoman named Marlene told The Daily Caller during an initial phone call Thursday afternoon. “We checked it out.”
When TheDC asked how the U.N. spokesman’s Twitter password and account were hacked, she declared that “lots of people can do this. It’s very easy.”
“A nerd — they can do just about anything,” she insisted, before promising to have a technical expert call The Daily Caller to explain how her claimed hack was accomplished.
The tweet was quickly deleted and replaced by another — which Twitter’s adjustable timeline showed was sent earlier.
The replacement tweet was sent 36 minutes after the first tweet, Grove told TheDC.
“On day of solidarity w/Palestinians, Ban Ki-moon stresses urgency of reaching 2-state solution… (corrected tweet),” that second tweet read, using what the U.N. initially said was a hacker’s text and changing only one number.
The “1-state” tweet is controversial because it echoes the demand by some Arabs for a so-called “one-state solution” to the Arab-Israeli conflict, rather than a two-state solution that would affirm a Jewish-majority Israel.
Such a “one-state solution” would merge Israel with adjacent Muslim-majority territories, to create a state in which Muslims would outnumber Jews. The Muslim majority would likely end Jewish government and the Jewish cultural character of Israel, and effectively eliminate Israel.
Arabs living alongside Israel, in the Gaza and West Bank enclaves, call themselves Palestinians.
The proposed “one-state solution” is being pushed by Arabs who oppose the much-touted two-state solution. The two-state solution, which has been promoted by the United States for almost seven decades, assumes Arabs living alongside Israel will agree to recognize the legitimacy of Israel’s Jewish-majority democracy and agree to live in peace and mutual respect.
That’s anathema to many Arabs, and especially to jihadis and Islamists in Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. They believe Muslims should rule Israel’s territory — especially Jerusalem — because it was conquered by a Muslim army in 638.
That Islamic argument is one reason why Arabs have fired 5,000 rockets into Israel’s cities and towns in recent years, and why Israel counter-attacked the Hamas group in the Gaza strip in November.
Even after 66 years of open conflict, no significant Arab leader or group has approved the continued existence of Israel. Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian leader who signed a U.S.-brokered peace agreement with Israel in 1978, was murdered by Islamists three years later.
The mistaken “1-state” tweet was sent on a day that U.N. intended to tout the two-state solution.
“Achieving the two-State solution, to which both Israel and the Palestinians have committed, is long overdue,” Ban Ki-Moon said in his message marking the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
