Hillel Neuer appeared on Newsmax with Emma Rechenberg and Shaun Kraisman, to discuss the Security Council’s first meeting about the Israeli hostages being held by Hamas, which took place 11 months after the October 7th massacre.
Emma Rechenberg, Newsmax: Joining us now, Hillel Neuer is the UN Watch spokesperson.
Hillel, nice to see you. And I’m sure you were listening in to Sarah’s reporting there. You’ve been critical of the United Nations for years and the mistreatment that you’ve noticed of Israel. Any surprise to you it took eleven months for the Security Council to meet to discuss the hostages?
Hillel Neuer: Look, as your reporter said, this is really unbelievable that the United Nations, which is the world body that is mandated to uphold international peace and security and human rights, has waited eleven months to even deal with the issue.
But you know, the only thing worse sometimes than the United Nations being silent on something is when they actually decide to speak. Because who will take the floor when the Security Council meets? We’re going to hear from China. This is a regime that has a million Muslim Uyghurs in camps. We’re going to hear from Russia. This is a regime that has trampled Ukraine and is bombing innocent people there. We’re going to hear from Algeria, a member of the Security Council. So, these are all regimes that effectively support Hamas in one way or the other. They are aligned with Iran, the regime that is behind a seven-front assault on Israel.
Let’s remember, we hear at the United Nations about the war in Gaza. Yes, there is a war in Gaza. That’s after Hamas invaded Israel. The next day, on October 8th, Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy in Lebanon, has been assaulting Israel nonstop since October 8th. They have 150,000 missiles. From Yemen, the Iranian proxy, the Houthis, are attacking Israel. They killed someone in Tel Aviv with a drone. You have, just the other day, an Iranian proxy from Iraq attacked Israel. Iran attacked Israel with 300 missiles and drones. From Syria, you have proxies. So we’re talking about a seven-front assault on Israel. Sadly, the United Nations is either unwilling or unable to address this.
Shaun Kraisman, Newsmax: Again, Palestine recognized as a state or country how you put it by the United Nations. Again, not so recognized as a state or a country there in Israel. Interesting there.
Spokesperson for the Secretary General was discussing of the United Nations getting the polio vaccine to Gazans, Palestinians, was asked about the possibility of meeting with PM Netanyahu next during the UN General Assembly. We have that on tape if we can play that for you. Watch this.
Journalist (recorded video): So that might be a talking point between Mr. Antonio Guterres and the Prime Minister Netanyahu during their possible upcoming meeting.
Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesperson for the Secretary General of the U.N. (recorded video): I think there will be quite a lot of talking points if they meet.
Journalist (recorded video): If they meet.
Shaun Kraisman, Newsmax: So “if they meet,” that’s obviously the key word. Do you expect the UN Secretary General and the Prime Minister of Israel to meet next week or really at all?
Hillel Neuer: Well, it’s possible. Prime Minister Netanyahu is planning to address the General Assembly at its opening in a couple of weeks in New York and we’ll have to see if the Secretary General will meet him. But look, the Secretary General has lost any moral credibility. Only a couple of months after the war he said, “yes, I condemn Hamas, but we also have to understand the context.” This word that was used notoriously in the congressional hearings by heads of Harvard and so forth, saying, you have to understand the context. So, Secretary General Guterres effectively justified what Hamas did. He enumerated numerous alleged grievances by Hamas and really effectively justified what they did. So he’s lost all credibility. And indeed, you showed a tweet. I responded to it a couple of days ago. He said, “I’ll never forget meeting the family of Hersh Goldberg-Polin,” but he refused to condemn Hamas. He refused to mention the word Hamas. The same thing happened the other day. The UN Human Rights Office issued a tweet. It was a little better. They said they condemned the deaths but they called it “armed groups.” They can’t even mention the word Hamas.
You have to understand, United Nations officials are in cahoots on the ground. UNRWA, the leading UN agency that deals with Palestinians their leading officials are Hamas leaders. The head of the UNRWA teachers union in Lebanon Fathi al-Sharif, is a Hamas terrorist official. UNRWA knows this. The leader of the UNRWA teachers union in Gaza for years, Suhail al-Hindi is on the Hamas politburo. Americans gave over $100 million to UNRWA this year. The UK just renewed funding to UNRWA. It’s despicable.
Emma Rechenberg, Newsmax: Yeah.
The UN General assembly kicks off next week. Normally for locals in New York it’s a ton of traffic because you’ve got folks from all over the world coming to New York City. Perhaps we could see protests this year. We’ve already seen it on college campuses this semester. We’ll be watching.
UN Watch spokesperson Hillel Neuer joining us this morning. Thank you very much, Hillel. We appreciate it.
Hillel Neuer: Thank you.
