UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer sat for a studio interview with Chris Mitchell from the Christian Broadcasting Network to discuss the UN Human Rights Council, UNRWA, and the silence from the international community as Hamas murders Palestinians during the ceasefire agreement.
Interview Transcript:
Chris Mitchell, CBN News: From Eleanor Roosevelt’s humanitarian vision in the 1940s to the current Human Rights Council at the UN, Hillel Neuer from UN Watch explains what happened and how it affects Israel. Hillel Neuer, great to be with you. You’re the director of UN Watch. First of all, for people who don’t know, explain what UN Watch does.
Hillel Neuer: Well, look, the United Nations is actually a very important institution, whether we like it or not. Its decisions are translated into every language. They affect the hearts and minds of hundreds of millions of people. But who’s watching the UN? Who’s guarding the Guardians? No one. There are no checks and balances at the UN - enter UN Watch.
We’re the only outside group whose mission is to monitor the United Nations by the principles of its own charter. If they elect dictatorships to human rights bodies, UN Watch is the first to speak out. If they discriminate in ways that are in violation of their own Charter’s equality guarantee, we’re the first to speak out.
Chris Mitchell, CBN News: Would you describe what’s going on right now in the Human Rights Council?
Hillel Neuer: Well, the Human Rights Council has its origins which are noble. Eleanor Roosevelt, the great humanitarian of the World War II era, was the founder of what was then called the Commission on Human Rights. Sadly, it went south. It got hijacked. By the year 2003, the chair was not Eleanor Roosevelt - it was the representative of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s brutal Libyan dictatorship. So Eleanor Roosevelt to Gaddafi - the rise and fall of human rights at the UN.
They had a reform 20 years ago, in 2006. They changed its name to Human Rights Council. And today, where are we with the reform? They just held elections again for their membership, and they elected Egypt, which is a brutal authoritarian regime. They elected Iraq. They elected Pakistan, which is a horrible regime that persecutes Christians and other minority groups, supports terrorists.
And the week before, the Human Rights Council elected new experts. One is a long-time Chinese diplomat, and one was an Iranian diplomat. These are experts on their advisory committee. There are democracies there, but they’re often in the minority, and often the dictatorships dominate. So a human rights body that was meant to preserve individual freedoms, whose principles are noble, has been largely hijacked by dictatorships, and we need to speak out.
Chris Mitchell, CBN News: So if you’ve got to go into the Human Rights Council and listen to these nations talk about Israel, what are you going to typically hear?
Hillel Neuer: Well, you’re going to hear a completely distorted picture of what’s happening. To say it’s a caricature would be to minimize what goes on. It’s a grotesque distortion of the reality. Most countries that take the floor end up being apologists for Hamas terrorism. They call that resistance. They accuse Israel of every crime in the book. I would say it’s complete demonization of Israel, as it was attacked on October 7 by Hamas terrorists, massacred 1,200 Israelis, families in their homes.
Israel is trying to defend itself from terrorism. Israel gets accused of committing war crimes, collective punishment, ethnic cleansing - and the biggest lie of all, the biggest hoax - genocide. You know, Israel is fighting terrorists that launched a war. And Israel gets accused of all of these things, also of racism, and typically, those accusing it are themselves guilty of many horrible human rights violations.
Chris Mitchell, CBN News: Hamas is also enforcing its rule in areas where Israel has pulled back by executing its rivals, extorting local businessmen and often displaying their weapons.
Hillel Neuer: I put up a video a few days ago on social media, and it said, here’s the reaction of the Human Rights Council to the massacre by Hamas. Hamas is accused of killing possibly over 50 Palestinians who were opposing Hamas, and like a mafia regime, they want to massacre any of their critics or opponents. And the response of the world is crickets. Our video is the sound of crickets.
Groups like Amnesty International, many leading activists like Greta Thunberg, the climate-Palestine activist who claimed to care about Gaza, who claimed to care about Palestinians, have been completely silent as Hamas is murdering Palestinians.
Chris Mitchell, CBN News: Talk about UNRWA - UNRWA and the relationship with Hamas, and especially things that were discovered during the war, the two-year war between Israel and Hamas.
Hillel Neuer: So look, UNRWA is the UN agency that’s supposed to care for Palestinians. They run schools, clinics, kind of a welfare state for Palestinians who are in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria. Millions of Palestinians are supposed to be helped by UNRWA.
What we discovered during the war is that UNRWA is not part of the solution - it’s really part of the problem. We discovered, and it was revealed, that numerous UNRWA employees, including teachers and social workers, were part of the Hamas massacre. They participated in the massacre. And that was a revelation for many.
For us, we were watching UNRWA over the years. We knew that many of the teachers were regularly inciting anti-Semitism, jihadi murder in the name of Allah, praise for Adolf Hitler, and other kinds of incitement to terrorism and anti-Semitism. We had exposed that for 10 years. UNRWA’s typical response was not to take action, not to fire those who promote terrorism in a classroom, but to attack us.
Now, when October 7 happened - these revelations - we began to do more research, and our recent report called Schools in the Grip of Terror, a 200-page report, reveals in detail how the heads of the UNRWA education system - a teacher, school principal and head of the teachers union in Gaza, Suhail al-Hindi - was also a Hamas terror chief. This is known information. UNRWA knew about it. They did nothing.
They allowed a member of the Hamas Politburo, who is in pictures with Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7 massacre, to run their 13,000-employee union in Gaza. Same in Lebanon - a teacher or school principal, head of 2,000 members of the teachers’ union, a guy named Fathi Sharif, was the head of Hamas in Lebanon.
Chris Mitchell, CBN News: So was this indoctrinating one generation after another into jihad?
Hillel Neuer: Absolutely. I mean, Hamas said it. They went, when this guy, Fathi Sharif, was killed, they said, “We praise his jihadi education.” So the UN allowed someone for 30 years to be a teacher, school principal, overseeing the union of 2,000 UN teachers, paid for largely by the American taxpayer. America was giving somewhere between three and four hundred million dollars a year to this system that knowingly employs Hamas terrorists and even terror chiefs.
What do we think they were doing in the classroom? They were certainly indoctrinating the young people, the young Palestinians, and recruiting them to join Hamas. And we were paying for it. Thankfully, America - first under President Biden, temporary one-year freeze cut on the funding; President Trump made it permanent. Netherlands announced beginning cutting money to UNRWA. Sweden announced a complete cut. Sadly, the UK, Canada, Australia, France, are still funding this terror-infested agency.
Chris Mitchell, CBN News: Yeah, I was going to ask about that. What other nations, besides what you’ve already mentioned, who are supporting this?
Hillel Neuer: It’s mostly Western countries. And there’s a history to this. The Arab states said, “We don’t want to make this into an Arab-funded agency. We want Western support.” Because every bit of funding comes with it political support, political legitimacy. The terrorist factions in Lebanon, in Gaza - like Hamas, like the others - they say, if Switzerland is giving us money, if the U.K. is giving us money, Canada, France, Norway gives a huge amount of money, they are endorsing our narrative.
And we didn’t talk about that. Let’s say it’s not just that they’re employing terror teachers. The very raison d’être, the very purpose of UNRWA, is to tell Palestinians you have the right of return. Sounds nice. What it means for Palestinians is that the war of 1948, when the Palestinian Arabs and their neighbors tried to destroy Israel, is not over - and that millions of descendants of Palestinians are going to enter Israel, like October 7, in a violent, murderous way, and dissolve Israel, dismantle Israel. That’s the essence of what UNRWA is all about.
It’s not an aid agency that’s just giving out food. It’s telling Palestinians your home isn’t here in Gaza - your home is in Tel Aviv - and your job is to dismantle Israel.
Chris Mitchell, CBN News: Final question, Hillel, how can people find out more about UN Watch?
Hillel Neuer: Well, UN Watch has our website - unwatch.org - latest news about the issues we’re talking about, the United Nations, human rights, Israel, the Middle East. And people can sign up on our website to get the latest updates. We’re also on social media - on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn - either UN Watch or my own account, Hillel Neuer.
Chris Mitchell, CBN News: Thanks for your insight into this and exposing what the world really needs to hear.
Hillel Neuer: Thank you.
