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After Francesca Albanese presented her annual report, it was endorsed by Iran, Cuba, and other tyrannies, UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer took the floor to respond in the interactive dialogue, and again in the general debate. The PLO ambassador kept banging on the table to interrupt, objecting that UN Watch was out of order. The Chair agreed. Judge for yourself - see excerpts below.
Francesca Albanese:
“Good morning, Excellencies. Apartheid Israel has created a torturous environment for millions of people for generations… I do not care about what religion Israel claims while it tortures, it slaughters, it starves, and it burns children alive with their parents… Those who document and pursue accountability, myself and the ICC judges and prosecutors continue to be targeted. Sanctions, discredited, silenced…”
Pakistan for the Islamic States:
“The televised holocaust of the Palestinian people…”
Palestine:
“the Judaization of Jerusalem…”
Qatar:
“policy of apartheid…”
China:
“Israel is seriously violating international law…”
Islamic Republic of Iran:
“Attacks by Israeli regime across the region…”
North Korea:
“The continued violation of human rights by Israel…”
Chair:
“I give the floor to United Nations Watch.”
Hillel Neuer:
“Mr. Chair,
Everything we just heard from the world’s worst abusers of human rights is absolutely false.
Now, we have before us a report that claims to apply international law. In reality, Ms. Albanese’s report abandons it.
From the very first page, her conclusion is already written: Israel is accused of genocide, and everything that follows is constructed to support that claim.
This is not legal analysis. It is advocacy.
Her report radically redefines torture - no longer as the specific, intentional abuse of a detainee, but as virtually everything: war, displacement, fear, even the existence of conflict itself.
If everything is torture, then nothing is.
She goes further, collapsing the distinction between torture and genocide, inventing a theory that has no grounding in international law and jurisprudence.
At the same time, she omits the most basic context:
Why is there is no accounting of the October 7 massacre?
Why no accounting of Hamas embedding its forces among civilians?
Why no accounting of hostages held underground and tortured?
Mr. Chair, Israel is mentioned 173 times. Hamas? Not even once.
Instead, we are given a narrative built largely on unverified submissions, partisan sources, and selective quotations - elevated into sweeping legal conclusions.
Distinguished Delegates,
International law demands rigor. It demands objectivity. It demands that we test claims against evidence - not the other way around.
Ms. Albanese’s report does the opposite.
It stretches definitions, ignores context, and reaches conclusions first.
And in doing so, it does not strengthen human rights.
It undermines them.
I urge this Council to reject this report. Thank you.”
(The Chair then gave the floor to the PLO ambassador, who had been repeatedly banging on his desk. He objected that UN Watch referenced Albanese’s report after the special debate on that had already concluded. But this was an absurd objection because this was the Item 7 General Debate, which includes everything, including her report. The Spanish ambassador chairing the debate, VP of the UNHRC, failed to recognize this, and instead indicated his agreement with the PLO.)
