Hillel Neuer appeared on NTD News to discuss the U.N.’s upcoming General Assembly session and its track record on holding the world’s worst human rights abusers, including Iran, China, and Russia, to account.
NTD News: Joining us now is Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of the UN Watch, a nonprofit with a stated mission of holding the United Nations accountable to its founding principles. Hillel, good to see you. The U.N. General Assembly is kicking off tomorrow. I want to get your thoughts on that for sure. But first, I want to ask you a quick question about our last story. So, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog wants to meet with Iran’s president. What needs to be discussed there?
Hillel Neuer: Look, the Islamic regime in Iran is in standing violations of numerous U.N. Security Council sanctions against its illicit nuclear program and its proliferation of deadly missiles. You know, Iran is violating international law by arming the Putin regime with deadly drones that are being used to kill hundreds and thousands of Ukrainians. So, whether it’s the nuclear file or whether it’s unconventional missiles, certainly, this is what the international community needs to talk about. The IAEA has, to date, failed to stop the Islamic regime in Iran from nuclear proliferation, which we hear Iran could be months away from being able to assemble the materials needed for a nuclear bomb that would threaten the world.
NTD News: Right, and Iran has been barred from - has barred, sorry - uranium enrichment experts on the inspection teams. But for years, it’s failed to explain these uranium traces that have been found at undeclared sites. So, should the U.N. be doing more to get answers to why this is happening?
Hillel Neuer: Well, for one thing, the U.N. shouldn’t be encouraging the Islamic regime in Iran. In the past year, keep in mind, the Iranian regime was handed the chairmanship of the United Nations Human Rights Council Social Forum. That was back in October. Then, earlier this year, the same regime became president of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, where I’m speaking to you from. In New York, at the General Assembly, they were not only a vice president, they were a rapporteur of that body’s - the General Assembly’s Committee on Disarmament. So what we’re seeing is a series of, I would say, morally obscene decisions that have not only failed to hold the regime to account but, on the contrary, have rewarded and elevated a regime that beats, blinds, tortures, and rapes women for the crime of demanding their own human rights. The U.N. is failing to hold them to account. On the contrary, they’re handing them prizes.
NTD News: It really is disturbing to hear about what’s happening there. So, let’s talk a little bit more about this U.N. General Assembly that starts tomorrow. Your organization, it says that a U.N. organization in Gaza has been fully infiltrated by Hamas, which is the UNRWA, of course. So do you expect this issue to be discussed at this week’s meeting?
Hillel Neuer: Sadly, we’re going to see - you know - the real opening is going to happen two weeks from tomorrow. That’s when President Biden will appear for the high-level segment. We’re going to have - you know - it’s going to be a catwalk for dictators. The Iranian regime’s new President, Masoud Pezeshkian, will be there. He’s just a puppet of the Ayatollah Khamenei, who’s a murderous dictator. We’re going to have Erdoğan of Turkey. He’ll be there. We’ll have the Emir of Qatar. So, the United Nations was founded to uphold peace, human rights, and international security. But what we’re going to see in New York in the coming weeks is, again, this U.N. body turning into a catwalk for dictators. Sadly, they’re not going to do a thing about the UNRWA agency that indeed is infiltrated with terrorists. Keep in mind, the head of the UNRWA teachers union in Lebanon, Fathi al-Sharif, is a member of Hamas. You can go on his Facebook page. We’ve linked to it from our website: unwatch.org. He is a senior official in Hamas and promotes the terrorist group daily. The head of the teachers union of UNRWA in Gaza for years, Suhail al-Hindi, is sitting on the Hamas Politburo. UNRWA knows this, and they refuse to stop funding them or employing them.
NTD News: So, based on what you’re saying here, how would you rate the U.N.’s response to what’s been happening in the Middle East and even in Eastern Europe as well? How do you think they’ve dealt with all of this?
Hillel Neuer: Well, if we’re talking about the Middle East, I don’t know if we have grades low enough to assign. Meaning you could assign an “F” as a failing grade - that would be charitable. Keep in mind that the U.N. so-called human rights expert on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, acts like an Iranian agent and apologist. She regularly encourages Hamas. She spreads their propaganda every single day. She’s coming to speak at Princeton and Brown universities. This is despicable. The United States should not be giving her a visa to enter the country. This is someone who’s been condemned for racial hatred against Jews by the United States special envoy and antisemitism by the French government, by the German government. So, you know, when it comes to assigning grades, the U.N. is basically encouraging Hamas, so they get a failing grade. And again, that’s being charitable.
NTD News: And what about in terms of Eastern Europe?
Hillel Neuer: Well, Eastern Europe, it’s a mixed grade on that. Some U.N. bodies over the past year or so did manage to hold Russia to account. We did have some resolutions at the Human Rights Council, some action at the General Assembly. If I had to give a grade on that, I would say maybe it’s a “C.” And again, that might be charitable. But there was some action on Russia. Nothing from the Security Council, of course, where Russia holds the veto. And, of course, the Secretary-General, Guterres, has been hapless. He’s been helpless. Hasn’t made any difference at all, to be frank. But there are some U.N. bodies - because Western European countries were so mobilized against Russia’s destruction of Ukrainian cities - wanton destruction and violation of international humanitarian law a number of leading countries did take action and so there have been some U.N. measures. Like I say, maybe we can give the U.N. a “C” when it comes to that.
NTD News: Hillel, we’re running out of time here, but I wanted to ask really quickly. China was actually praised at the U.N.’s 2024 human rights record review. But this despite overwhelming evidence of human rights abuses on many fronts. So what was that about?
Hillel Neuer: Well, look, when you talk about the Human Rights Council, keep in mind that China is a sitting member of the Human Rights Council. So, if you want to have a serious body, it begins with who are the members and the judges, and the communist regime of Beijing is sitting as a member. It’s absurd. They’ve been a member virtually every year since the Council began in 2006. They have significant influence. They donated $200,000 to the office of a U.N. expert named Alena Douhan supposedly a human rights expert. They gave her that money around the same time that this person, Alena Douhan, went on YouTube and said that Xinjiang, where a million Uyghurs have been put in camps Muslim Uyghurs, she said everything is great there, and everything is happy. She’s going to be speaking on Friday at the United Nations. I’mgoing to hopefully be there and challenge her in that debate. And she’s going to be there to praise the communist regime. It’s completely upside down. It’s an Orwellian nightmare in a body that was again founded as the anti-Hitler alliance - founded to protect human rights and international justice. It’s being turned upside down by the world’s worst dictators, terrorists, and their Western apologists.
NTD News: It really is unbelievable what’s been happening there with the U.N. But, Hillel, I wish you all the best with your debate soon. So, Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of the UN Watch, thank you for your input today.
Hillel Neuer: Thank you.
