Hillel Neuer’s appearance on Fox News Radio with Brian Kilmeade to discuss the U.N.’s admiration for repressive dictatorships and their extreme bias against the State of Israel.
Brian Kilmeade, Fox News: Hillel Neuer is the Executive Director of UN Watch and joins us now. Hillel, welcome back.
Hillel Neuer: Thank you so much.
Brian Kilmeade, Fox News: First off, what do we expect next week? It’s going to be all about Israel, isn’t it?
Hillel Neuer: Well, it’ll certainly be about Israel. And let’s keep in mind, the UN General Assembly annual opening is really a catwalk for dictators. Erdogan from Turkey will be there. The new president of Iran will be there. It’s going to be one dictator after another. The U.N. is rolling out the red carpet.
Keep in mind that the U.N. Human Rights Council is composed of Cuba, a police state, Qatar, sponsoring the Taliban and Hamas, the Chinese communist regime, Sudan, Eritrea, Algeria. That’s the Human Rights Council. Keep in mind, the U.N., their disarmament chair several months ago was the Islamic Regime of Iran. China is on the Human Rights Council, as I said. And Saudi Arabia was made chair of their Women’s Rights Commission. The U.N. has turned into a sad joke and it’s tragic because millions of victims will pay the price.
Brian Kilmeade, Fox News: I mean, do they just do this in a rotation or do they try to do the most farcical thing, period?
Hillel Neuer: Some, a few of the bodies, like the disarmament body was rotation, although Iran was elected to several other disarmament posts at the General Assembly this year. The Human Rights Council, that’s an election. So Xi Jinping’s Chinese communist dictatorship, oppressing 1.5 billion people, that’s a fifth of humanity denied any freedoms of speech, religion, assembly, they’re elected to the Human Rights Council. And Saudi Arabia was elected to chair the U.N. Women’s Rights Commission. It’s hard to imagine that it’s true and that it’s not made up, but that’s the reality.
Brian Kilmeade, Fox News: So, we have Israel now coming up on October 7th. Will there be even any sense of respect for what the Israelis experienced on October 7th? Or are they going to focus on how they feel the Israelis are fighting this war?
Hillel Neuer: Look, I got to tell you, I’m someone heading the group UN Watch. We’re calling out the U.N. for its abuses. We often condemn the U.N. when they’re silent. And I got to tell you, the only worse thing than the U.N. being silent, unfortunately, too often, is when the U.N. speaks.
So, on October 7th, it’s not clear whether it’ll be worse if the U.N. is silent about what happened or if they speak, because what the U.N. has been saying just in the past few days is unbelievable. The head of the United Nations Secretariat, the Secretary-General Guterres, condemned Israel for a brilliant, pinpointed attack on Hezbollah terrorists. These are brutal terrorists who fired 8,500 missiles and deadly drones at Israel since October 8th.
The day after the Hamas massacre, Hezbollah joined in and has been attacking Israel, including today. And Israel did a brilliant counter-terrorism operation, hitting Hezbollah terrorists in their pockets with the pagers that the terrorist organization distributed to their operatives. It is unprecedented in warfare, as military experts around the world have acknowledged. It’s a brilliant tactical move, targeted. Yes, there may have been a few innocent people who were killed. That’s collateral damage. But, I can’t think of a more pinpointed operation. And yet, the U.N. Secretary-General is condemning Israel.
Human Rights Chief, Volker Turk, and Geneva is condemning Israel. And a lineup of U.N. so-called experts, like the Hamas apologist Francesca Albanese, are condemning Israel. It’s completely Orwellian. You know, when bin Laden was killed, Ban Ki-moon, to his credit, said, “I am very much relieved that a mastermind of terrorism was killed.” But when it comes to Israel, it’s the complete opposite. The U.N. has become apologist for the Hamas and the Hezbollah terrorist organizations.
Brian Kilmeade, Fox News: Who do they look to as the Palestinian Authority, being that the Palestinians have no authority?
Hillel Neuer: Well, look, Mahmoud Abbas is the head of the so-called Palestinian Authority. He’s someone who just a year or two ago said the Jews brought the Holocaust upon themselves. This is a recurring theme. He’s the moderate, right? In the Palestinian territories, or Judea, Samaria and Gaza, it’s Hamas that is considered the militant terrorist group and the PLO, the PA is considered the moderate. The head of the moderate Palestinian Authority is a notorious Holocaust denier. He was condemned for his antisemitic remarks several times, even by the Europeans.
And he’s the moderate and the U.N. has rewarded him. In the past year, the U.N. upgraded the status of the Palestinians at the U.N. They are now sitting among the member states. The U.N. should not be rewarding, giving the trappings of statehood, to an entity that endorses terrorism. The PA embraced what Hamas has done. There is not only terrorism under Hamas and Gaza, but in cities under PA authority, like Jenin. There are terrorists building tunnels with RPGs. It’s sort of a full-on Gaza 2.0 in the West Bank, where the PA supposedly has authority around exercising it, and the U.N. is now rewarding them.
Brian Kilmeade, Fox News: It’s crazy to think. Ukraine is the other major story. The Russians clearly invading, clearly the aggressor, but they got some friends. They got China, North Korea, they got Iran, and of course, some others in the region, like Belarus, who are basically satellites of them. Your thoughts about how Zelenskyy is going to be received?
Hillel Neuer: Well, the U.N. has a full spectrum of countries there. The Western states have rallied rightly around Zelenskyy and Ukraine. Russia committed aggression in invading Ukraine. They’ve been pummeling innocent civilians, indiscriminately bombing cities. It’s complete aggression and a violation of international law. And the free world should stand with Zelenskyy and Ukraine. And to do much more than they’ve done to date.
I agree with Garry Kasparov, the former chess grandmaster and one of the leading spokespersons in calling out Putin. And he says, we should let Ukraine defeat Russia. And I think we’re going to see a mixed reception for Zelenskyy. I think the Western states will rightly embrace him. The others will do the opposite.
Brian Kilmeade, Fox News: It’s astounding to me too, but you have some divide here in the U.S. too on that. I think there’s just less and less faith that the U.N. can do things. I remembered when during the Iraq war, and leading up to it, it was a real effort. Let’s win over the Security Council. Let’s win over the world with our effort. Now, it just seems almost to be de-emphasized, Hillel. Is that how you feel or are you in the middle of it?
Hillel Neuer: No, I will agree with that. Look, the U.N. has been dysfunctional for decades. Certainly during the Cold War, it couldn’t accomplish anything because there’s the deadlock between the US and Russia. And it’s true the 90s was a bit of an exceptional period because the Soviet Union fell and the new Russian government was somewhat democratic and not as evil. But Putin, in the past 20 years, progressively brought Russia back to its Soviet-level evil status by trying to recreate the Soviet Empire.
And the U.N. has been largely dysfunctional. I mean, again, when we expose abuses, like the fact that the Islamic regime in Iran was named chair last October of the U.N. Human Rights Council Social Forum, not a single country spoke out to prevent it. So there is a culture at the U.N. of go along to get along. And I mean, our democracies. I mean, even the U.S., though on occasion they speak out, but even the U.S.,certainly the Europeans, they don’t want to say a thing when dictatorships hijack premier U.N. bodies, abusing the U.N. principles.
Our group, UN Watch, is speaking out for the U.N. Charter, which is a noble document speaking for freedom, human rights, peace and justice. Sadly, it’s the dictators who hijack these bodies, and they’re the ones who claim to speak in the name of the U.N., but in fact, they are twisting, perverting, and subverting the founding principles of that body.
Brian Kilmeade, Fox News: So, where the whole Israel war is heading, I think it’s heading north. I think they’re looking to contain Gaza to the best that they can and to go get Sinwar and their hostages back. But I do think they seem to be pivoting towards Hezbollah. I guess Lebanon is the face of the country, but Hezbollah is running the country. The humanitarian effort, I guess, to a degree too. But I want you to hear what General Jack Keane said about the possibility of this war becoming a full-blown war in Lebanon.
General Jack Keane (recorded audio): They have moved one of their elite divisions out of Gaza into the operational area, into the north. They have not mobilized reserves for that particular mission. If they were going to do a large-scale ground assault, which likely would need to be taken, they would use reserves, but they could start with a surprise tactical move with the forces they have.
But certainly I think they’re on the mindset that this operation has to be done. Why is that? Because Nasrallah is not going to stop attacking northern Israel. He started on October the 8th, and he’s continuing it ever since. He is the leader of Hezbollah. And the reality is, there’s 70,000 Israelis that are displaced from their homes in northern Israel.
And for them to go back to those homes, the Hezbollah military organizations have to move back across the Litani River, which is about 20 miles away from the border, so that they can not bomb or reach those homes with rockets, with artillery and with mortars. Others would say, well, just leave it as it is, Israel. Why start another war, open up another front to this war? Well, if they leave it as it is, then we’re redefining the border of Israel.
Brian Kilmeade, Fox News: There is a lot at stake. Israel can’t exist [like this], the status quo is not okay.
Hillel Neuer: Look, I agree with everything that he said. Currently in northern Israel, Israel’s sovereignty is under question because some 70,000 Israelis can’t live in a large part of northern Israel. And no country can allow that to remain. Hezbollah is in effect occupying northern Israel. And let’s keep in mind, the war began on October 8th in the north. Hezbollah, unprovoked, began a barrage of missiles that has been daily. One of their missiles famously killed 12 Druze children in Israel’s Golan Heights. And their rockets are fired indiscriminately. They have 150,000 missiles that are aimed at Israeli population centers. They could cause incredible damage to Israeli civilians. So this is very serious business.
The war has been going on since October 8th. It’s been on a certain level of intense flame. The fear is that it could go to the next level. But to a large degree, everyone in Israel understands that there is no choice. You know, the notion of de-escalation, you can say de-escalation, but when, Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, you have to respond. Otherwise, you’re not a country. Israel does have to respond. It will have to push Hezbollah away. But we could be facing very dangerous times over there.
Brian Kilmeade, Fox News: We are. Hillel Neuer, the Executive Director of the UN Watch. Thanks so much.
