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As the UN Human Rights Council gathered to debate racism, UN Watch invited courageous Yemeni journalist Luai Ahmed to unveil the rampant racism and Jew-hatred that he grew up with in Yemen — and how his visit to Israel after October 7th and witnessing life there changed his worldview.

Debate Highlights:

Vice President of UN Human Rights Council: I now declare open Agenda Item 9 entitled “Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Forms of Intolerance.”

Turkey: Turkey continues to combat racism, xenophobia, anti-Muslim racism, and anti-immigrant hatred in all their forms.

Pakistan: A world free from discrimination must remain our goal.

Islamic Republic of Iran: We stand firmly with the Palestinian people against racism, racial discrimination, dispossession, and the destruction of Palestinian lives and communities.

Vice President of UN Human Rights Council: I give the floor to United Nations Watch.

Luai Ahmed for UN Watch: Mr. President, let’s talk about racism in the Middle East.

I grew up in Yemen, where the word that we used for black people is “abeed,” which quite literally means “slaves.”

Racism towards black people in my country is horrifying, but it’s not even the most toxic hatred that I was taught.

The first time I ever heard the word “Jew” was in my local mosque when I was nine years old.

At the end of Friday prayers, the Imam said: “May Allah kill the Jews and the Zionists.”

And I responded alongside thousands of Muslims praying beside me: “Ameen.”

I was taught that Zionism meant killing Arabs, stealing our land, and destroying Islam.

Then October 7th came.

Hamas terrorists “freed Palestine” by slaughtering 1,200 Israelis and kidnapping more than 200 people, including a one-year-old child.

Almost everyone in my Arab-Muslim circle celebrated.

I didn’t.

Instead, as a journalist, I decided to visit the so-called Zionist entity, and I was completely shocked to the core by the lack of apartheid and racism that I experienced.

One day, I got an eye infection.

At the hospital, the nurses in reception were Jewish.

The doctor treating me was Arab.

Is there racism in Israel? Of course. There’s racism everywhere.

But Arabs in Israel aren’t called ”slaves.“

They are doctors, engineers, and party leaders.

My experience helped me realize that Zionism really just means the Jewish people’s right to a tiny country.

Everything I was thought was a lie.

The post United Nations Stunned: “Everything I Was Taught About Israel Was a Lie” appeared first on UN Watch.

By Dina Rovner, Legal Advisor at UN Watch

The report released today by Francesca Albanese is presented as an examination of Israel’s “destruction of truth,” but in reality is itself an assault on truth. This latest iteration of the genocide canard advances a self-sealing theory in which interpretations that support the genocide charge are accepted without question, while contrary evidence is dismissed and transformed into proof of “mediacide.” Thus, Israeli evidence that purported journalists belonged to terrorist organizations becomes a “smear.” Evidence that Hamas operated from hospitals becomes “humanitarian camouflage.” Challenges to famine findings become “genocide denial.” Media outlets that report Israeli arguments are accused of amplifying propaganda, while social-media platforms that carry them face suggestions of complicity. Her framework leaves remarkably little room for legitimate scrutiny, competing evidence or reasoned debate.

Central to Albanese’s charge is the unsupported assertion that Israel intentionally targeted Gazan journalists for “murder” in order to “silence Palestinian journalism” (paras. 13, 19). Albanese dismisses as “smear campaigns” (para. 26) Israeli evidence that 170 of the journalists killed in Gaza after October 7, 2023 were Hamas or PIJ combatants, refusing to engage with it. Yet more than 60 of these have already been admitted by Hamas and PIJ as their combatants through martyr notices published by the terrorist groups. Indeed, since June 2025, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has removed 27 “journalists” from its lists of “journalists and media workers killed in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (IOPT),” after determining that they were Hamas or PIJ combatants.

Journalists admitted by Hamas or PIJ to be combatants include:

• Yahya Omar Abu Manih, eulogized by Hamas as a “martyred field commander.”
• Ahmed Abu Mahti, eulogized by Hamas as a squad leader in Hamas’ Fawzi Abu Qara (al-Khulafa) Battalion in the Northern Brigade.
• Ahmed Al-Helou, eulogized by Hamas as a “mujahid” in the Northern Khan Younis Brigade.
• Assem Adli Ahmed Al-Barsh, eulogized by Hamas as a Qassam Brigades group commander in the Northern Brigade’s Western Battalion.
• Amin Fathi Hamdan, eulogized by Hamas as a platoon commander
• Mohamed Nabil Al-Zaq, confirmed by PIJ as a commander and seen in a PIJ combat training video.
• Mahmoud Abu Shirby, eulogized by PIJ as a commander.
• Saeed Abu Hassanin, admitted by Hamas as a commander.
• Mohamed Jarghoun, eulogized by Hamas as a “Qassami mujahid martyr.”
• Ahmed Abu Eisha, eulogized by PIJ as a platoon commander.
• Mohamed Skheil, eulogized by PIJ as a commander killed inside the Shifa Hospital.
• Tarek Skheil, eulogized by PIJ as a commander who posed as a “journalist” and used Shifa Hospital as a base. 

The fact that even Hamas and PIJ contradict one of Albanese’s principal accusations is emblematic of the report’s broader deficiencies. 

Albanese claims to expose how “the destruction of truth has become integral to the destruction of a people.” Yet, as the following sections demonstrate, her report substitutes selective evidence, unsupported inferences and distorted legal analysis for rigorous fact-finding. Far from exposing an “assault on truth,” it perpetuates one—under the imprimatur of the United Nations. 

1. Genocide Assumed, Not Proven 

Albanese’s analysis begins with the conclusion it purports to prove. She refers to Israel’s “genocidal destruction” and describes the current hostilities as “the genocidal phase” of Israel’s “long colonial project” (para. 1). Later in the report, she describes the conflict as the “ongoing genocide in Palestine” (paras. 41, 91) and as established fact, referring to “the genocide” and Israel’s  “genocidal campaign” (paras. 28, 42, 64, 70, 81). In circular fashion, she then presents Israel’s alleged targeting of journalists, which she terms “mediacide,” as further evidence of the premise she has already assumed, declaring it “probative of genocidal intent” (para. 41).

Even Albanese’s own authorities undermine her attempt to infer genocidal intent from the alleged systematic killing of journalists. In paragraph 9, she claims that “systematically killing those who document atrocities” may be evidence of an intent to destroy the protected group, citing Bosnia v. Serbia (at para. 373) and Croatia v. Serbia (at para. 148). Yet neither cited passage addresses the killing of journalists or witnesses, much less establishes that such conduct is evidence of genocidal intent. Instead, both establish the stringent standard for inferring genocidal intent from a pattern of conduct under which genocidal intent must be “the only inference that could reasonably be drawn from the acts in question.” 

Moreover, in paragraph 89, she herself offers a different explanation for the same alleged conduct—claiming that Israel targeted journalists “to conceal” alleged “mass atrocities” and “also to erode the very possibility of documenting them.” An alleged intent to conceal atrocities or suppress their documentation is not the specific intent to destroy a protected group required for genocide. Yet in paragraph 91, she recasts Israel’s alleged targeting of journalists as “intrinsic to the ongoing genocide.” Albanese neither establishes the specific genocidal intent required under international law nor explains how her allegations satisfy the stringent ICJ standard she herself invokes.   

2. “Mediacide”: An Invented Concept Presented as Proof of Genocide 

“Mediacide” is not a recognized international crime or established legal category. Yet Albanese uses this invented concept to link fundamentally different forms of conduct to genocide. In paragraph 90, she describes “mediacide” as a “single, integrated phenomenon” that  encompasses the alleged targeting of Palestinian journalists, Israeli media coverage, and the reporting practices of Western media and digital platforms. In paragraph 91, she declares these phenomena “intrinsic to the ongoing genocide,” without establishing how they demonstrate the specific intent to destroy a protected group required under international law.

Moreover, Albanese stretches “mediacide” to cover almost anything that affects the information environment—from the alleged killing of journalists and destruction of media infrastructure to Israeli government advertising, television commentary, Western media coverage and social-media moderation. These are fundamentally different acts, governed by different legal standards. Grouping them together under a single label does not turn them into a single legal wrong, much less evidence of genocide.

3. Combatants Recast as Journalists 

Albanese misrepresents international humanitarian law when she sweepingly claims in paragraph 7 that “[j]ournalists in armed conflict are civilians, protected unless they directly participate in hostilities,” citing Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions and ICRC Rule 34. In paragraph 15 she reiterates that the “civilian status” of journalists is “presumed,” citing also the ICRC’s Interpretive Guidance. But that is only part of the story. Albanese omits that the same ICRC guidance she cites also recognizes that members of an organized armed group whose “continuous combat function” involves the preparation, execution or command of military operations do not qualify as civilians at all—even when they are not carrying out a particular attack. A Hamas or PIJ fighter or commander does not suddenly benefit from civilian status just because they simultaneously work as a journalist.

Albanese compounds this selective presentation of the law by dismissing evidence of journalists’ military roles. At the outset, she characterizes allegations of terrorist affiliation as journalists being “smeared” while “documenting the destruction of their own society” (para. 3(a)), and in paragraph 7 warns that “mischaracterizing journalists as ‘terrorists’ or combatants cannot negate” their protection. In fact, the opposite applies here: mischaracterizing a combatant as a journalist does not transform him into a protected civilian. 

As discussed above, Albanese’s blanket dismissal of Israeli evidence as “undisclosed or discredited” is contradicted by Hamas and PIJ’s own identification of individuals listed as journalists as their combatants, as well as CPJ’s subsequent removal of 27 names from its database after determining that they were Hamas or PIJ combatants. CPJ expressly condemned “the misrepresentation of combatants as journalists or media workers.” The problem is not new. During the 2014 Gaza conflict, UNESCO withdrew its condemnation of the killing of Abdullah Murtaja as a journalist after evidence emerged that he was a member of Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades. UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova expressly deplored “attempts to instrumentalize the profession of journalists by combatants.” 

4. Journalist Deaths Do Not Prove Israel Targeted Journalists 

Albanese repeatedly treats the killing of journalists as evidence that Israel deliberately targeted them because of their work. In paragraph 3(a), she describes the “systematic targeting” of Palestinian journalists and claims that it “has progressively deprived the world of its primary witnesses” of Israel’s conduct. But these are distinct propositions. The fact that a journalist was killed in an Israeli strike does not establish that the journalist was deliberately targeted, much less that the purpose was to suppress reporting.

Albanese makes a similar leap in claiming that the destruction of more than 150 journalists’ homes “signals an intent to persecute the media sector” (para. 18). But a tally of destroyed homes does not establish that they were deliberately targeted because of their connection to journalists. 

5. Destroyed Media Buildings: Motive Assumed Without Evidence 

A media facility can become a military objective if, in the circumstances of the particular case, its nature, location, purpose or use makes an effective contribution to military action and its destruction, capture or neutralization offers a definite military advantage.  

Albanese dispenses with that inquiry. In paragraph 35, she cites the destruction of Palestine Tower, damage to approximately 50 media offices and the destruction of Press House and declares that the “early and intense targeting of media institutions likely indicates an explicit intention to suppress reporting from the ground.” Yet Albanese simply assumes that the media offices were the intended targets and that suppressing reporting was the objective, without offering evidence for either conclusion.  

Palestine Tower illustrates the speculation underlying Albanese’s conclusion. Israel gave an entirely different explanation at the time for the strike, identifying the target as “military infrastructure used by senior Hamas terrorist operatives for carrying out terrorist activity.” Reporting from the time also identified Hamas offices in the tower. Albanese does not address this evidence. Nor does she offer evidence to support her claim that Israel’s actual objective was to silence journalists. The intelligence and contemporaneous targeting assessments that would shed light on the strike’s actual purpose are not publicly available, and Albanese offers no indication that she reviewed them. Yet she attributes to Israel a motive she cannot substantiate.   

The Press House example fares no better. Publicly available information does not establish precisely how or why the building was destroyed. Yet Albanese treats its destruction as evidence of an Israeli campaign to suppress journalism, again substituting speculation for evidence.  

6. Hamas Erased From Gaza’s “Information Environment” 

Albanese claims to analyze Israel’s war “on and through the media” (para. 1), which she characterizes as Israel’s “destruction of truth” (summary), while effectively excluding Hamas from her analytical framework. She focuses instead on Israel’s alleged targeting of journalists, its “architecture of information control,” and the global media’s amplification of Israeli narratives (para. 3(b)). Yet Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2007 and exercises coercive power over the environment in which Palestinian journalists operate.

Hamas’s repression of journalists is well documented. In 2025, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported that Hamas violations against journalists during the war were “vastly underreported.” The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate told CPJ that journalists faced threats, interrogations, beatings, arrests, publication bans, interference with content and surveillance, and that many practiced self-censorship to avoid retaliation. Journalists described being beaten and threatened by Hamas security forces and prevented from covering anti-Hamas protests. This predates the current war. During the 2014 Gaza conflict, the Foreign Press Association protested Hamas’s threats and pressure against foreign journalists, reporting that journalists had been “harassed, threatened or questioned” over their reporting. Correspondents, including Italian journalist Gabriel Barbati and Polish journalist Wojciech Cegielski reported on Hamas violations against civilians during the 2014 war only after leaving Gaza. 

Although Albanese briefly acknowledges that Hamas has threatened journalists covering protests against it (para. 16), this fact disappears from her analysis of the “destruction of truth” within Gaza. Instead, she portrays Palestinian journalists as continuing  “to bear witness” despite “bombardment, displacement, hunger, and exhaustion,” and declares that “every image, fragment of video and testimony” sent from Gaza “stands as an act of resistance against colonial erasure” (para. 5). By scrutinizing purported Israeli influence over reporting while failing to incorporate Hamas’s documented control, intimidation and censorship of journalists into her analysis, Albanese presents a fundamentally distorted account of the information environment she claims to examine.

7. A Double Standard for Evidence: Contrary Evidence Becomes “Disinformation” 

Albanese repeatedly brands information that contradicts her narrative as “disinformation,” “denial” or “humanitarian camouflage,” while presenting her own disputed and unverified claims as fact. In paragraph 60, she describes challenges to famine warnings and even “questioning the reliability of humanitarian assessments” as “denial.” In paragraphs 69–70, she attacks media outlets for reporting Israeli arguments concerning evacuation orders, human shields and the military use of civilian facilities, dismissing these arguments as “humanitarian camouflage.” She likewise describes claims that Hamas operates from hospitals and other civilian sites as “unverified.”

Yet there were ample grounds to question the famine assessments. In March 2024, the IPC projected that famine was imminent in northern Gaza. Three months later, its Famine Review Committee concluded that the available evidence did not indicate that famine was occurring, while acknowledging major gaps in the evidence on food consumption, nutrition and mortality and a “very high level of uncertainty.” 

Even the IPC’s August 2025 famine finding was highly contested on methodological grounds. The Famine Review Committee acknowledged limitations in the malnutrition data and the absence of direct evidence of nutrition-related mortality, while critics challenged the data, thresholds and assumptions used to reach the finding. 

Albanese applies the same tactic to UNRWA. She condemns the “amplification of unsubstantiated allegations” against the agency (para. 68), yet the United Nations’ own Office of Internal Oversight Services found evidence indicating that nine UNRWA employees may have participated in the October 7 attacks, and UNRWA terminated them. 

In paragraph 68, Albanese refers to “unverified or false Israeli claims” that Hamas operates from hospitals and other civilian sites. Yet the evidence concerning Al-Shifa alone is substantial. The U.S. intelligence community assessed with “high confidence” that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad used Al-Shifa and sites beneath it for command infrastructure, command-and-control activities, weapons storage and holding hostages. Israeli forces also uncovered a tunnel network and weapons at the hospital. Released hostages testified that they had been held or taken to hospitals, while security-camera footage showed armed Hamas terrorists bringing two October 7 hostages into Al-Shifa.  

Albanese repeatedly criticizes media outlets for what she considers inadequate verification of Israeli claims, yet fails to apply the same scrutiny to evidence supporting her own conclusions. This selective treatment of evidence is particularly troubling because the Code of Conduct requires Special Procedures mandate holders to rely on “objective, reliable information” from “relevant credible sources,” to “duly cross-check” information to the best extent possible, and to act with “impartiality” and “even-handedness.”  

Her treatment of evidence falls short of these standards. In the introduction, Albanese quotes an alleged Israeli soldier as saying, “Whoever writes an article or works on a laptop is like someone carrying a Kalashnikov and attacking us” (para. 3(a)). Her only source is a submission by Addameer. She does not identify the soldier, provide the circumstances of the statement or cite any corroborating evidence. Even if authentic, the statement is anecdotal. The views of an unidentified soldier cannot establish IDF policy or prove that Israel targets journalists because of their work. Yet Albanese places the quotation immediately after alleging that Israel systematically kills and intimidates journalists to suppress documentation of its actions.

The same double standard appears in her treatment of Palestinian sources. Albanese describes Palestinian journalists as the world’s “primary witnesses” to the “destruction of their own society” (para. 3(a)) and declares that “every image, fragment of video and testimony” sent from Palestinian territory is an “act of resistance against colonial erasure” (para. 5). These sweeping assertions presume the reliability of Palestinian-produced material. She does not explain how such material is verified, distinguish verified evidence from unverified claims, or acknowledge that Palestinian sources may also require corroboration. 

This is consistent with her broader record. As UN Watch has documented, Albanese has repeatedly amplified false or unverified claims against Israel, including claims originating with Hamas-controlled authorities, in one case even admitting that she did so to be “provocative.” In May 2025, she urged the media to stop identifying Gaza casualty figures as coming from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health and instead report the figures simply as people “Israel killed.” 

Albanese may disagree with evidence that challenges her conclusions. But dismissing contrary evidence as “denial,” “propaganda” or “humanitarian camouflage,” while accepting claims that support her narrative without comparable scrutiny, is not impartial fact-finding. It is selective treatment of evidence designed to reinforce a predetermined conclusion. 

8. Western Media Condemned for Reporting Israel’s Side 

In a distortion of ordinary journalism, Albanese attacks major Western media outlets, including BBC, CNN, and The New York Times for reporting Israeli claims and arguments as though reporting them amounts to endorsing them. Her targets are particularly striking: these same outlets have published extensive reporting highly critical of Israel and its conduct in Gaza. Yet Albanese accuses them of amplifying Israeli “humanitarian camouflage,” including claims concerning evacuation orders, human shields and Hamas’s use of civilian facilities (paras. 69–70), and charges them with reproducing narratives that “obscure, justify or legitimize atrocity crimes while marginalizing Palestinian voices, evidence and international law” (para. 90).  

In one example, Albanese says Western media “frequently reproduced” Israel’s portrayal of evacuation orders and safe zones as measures to protect civilians “without challenging it” (para. 69). Her supporting footnote cites an April 2024 New York Times report on preparations for an Israeli operation in Rafah. Yet that article did not simply reproduce Israel’s position. It reported that Israel planned to relocate civilians to an expanded humanitarian zone, but also noted that more than one million Palestinians were sheltering in Rafah and that the proposed zone was already overflowing and lacked adequate clean water and sanitation. It quoted a Palestinian former official asking, “Where do these million people go?” and reported U.S. and U.N. concerns about protecting civilians. Far from supporting Albanese’s accusation, the New York Times article she cites directly contradicts it.  

The same problem appears in her treatment of Hamas’s use of hospitals. Albanese complains that “unverified claims that Hamas operates from hospitals and other civilian sites” lent credibility to narratives justifying attacks on medical facilities (para. 70). But reporting an allegation, identifying its source and examining the evidence is not the same as adopting the allegation as fact. CNN, for example, repeatedly attributed the claims to Israel, reported Hamas’s denials and distinguished what it could independently verify from what it could not. After visiting Al-Shifa, CNN explicitly told viewers that what it had seen was “not proof of a Hamas command center,” while reporting the evidence presented by Israel and the competing claims about what it showed. Albanese’s characterization therefore obscures the distinction between reporting a contested claim and endorsing it.

In addressing the question of “human shield,” Albanese notes that the New York Times referred to “human shields” 176 times and the BBC 81 times, presenting the frequency itself as evidence that Western media adopted an Israeli “framing” of civilian deaths (para. 70). But counting the words proves nothing. Albanese does not show whether the references were allegations attributed to Israel, findings reported from other sources, statements challenged by the outlet, or conclusions supported by evidence. Nor does she establish that the underlying allegation was false. 

9. Stretching the Law to Manufacture Liability 

Albanese repeatedly invokes international criminal law to transform speech, journalism and commercial activity by private actors into components of genocide. But the authorities she cites do not support the conclusions she draws from them.

Her reliance on the Rwanda “Media Case,” Prosecutor v. Nahimana, is one example. Albanese claims that statements by Israeli presenters and commentators amount to direct and public incitement to genocide and says that their being “unchallenged and unrepudiated” engages the responsibility of the media organizations themselves (paras. 61-62). But Nahimana does not establish such a sweeping rule. The Appeals Chamber stressed that the specific crime requires a direct public appeal to commit genocide, made with the intent to incite genocide. It expressly distinguished such incitement from hate speech and incitement to violence, holding that speech must amount to more than a “vague or indirect suggestion.” The tribunal examined the specific broadcasts, the intent behind them and the individual defendants’ responsibility for their dissemination. 

The facts of Nahimana also bear little resemblance to Albanese’s allegations against Israeli media. The case concerned RTLM broadcasts that directly incited the killing of Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide. Albanese, by contrast, relies on a handful of selected statements by Israeli presenters and commentators, without adequately examining their context, meaning or the intent of the speakers. Instead, she characterizes them as direct and public incitement to genocide and invokes Nahimana to suggest that media organizations bear responsibility for statements left “unchallenged and unrepudiated” (paras. 61-62). But the judgment provides no basis for drawing such sweeping conclusions from isolated statements without establishing the required elements of the crime.  

Albanese makes the same legal leap when accusing social-media companies of potential complicity in international crimes. She says Google and X accepted Israeli government advertising that disputed famine claims and other allegations against Israel (paras. 50, 85). From there, she jumps to the possibility of criminal complicity (para. 88), citing Furundžija, a war-crimes judgment from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

But Furundžija does not establish criminal liability merely for accepting payment to publish an advertisement. It requires assistance that had a “substantial effect” on the commission of a crime, together with knowledge that the assistance facilitated the crime. Albanese establishes neither. She identifies no international crime that was substantially assisted by a Google or X advertisement, no evidence that carrying the advertisement facilitated such a crime and no evidence that the platforms accepted it knowing that it would do so.

The post Legal Analysis of Francesca Albanese’s October 2026 Report to the General Assembly appeared first on UN Watch.

In addition, following are essential sources on Navi Pillay’s troubling record:

• Pillay’s Complicity With Genocide: A UN whistleblower accused Navi Pillay of being “complicit in genocide.” Emma Reilly, a human rights lawyer who worked for Navi Pillay, alleges that under her leadership the UN human rights office handed dissidents’ names to China—including Uyghurs.

• Report: Navi Pillay Turned Blind Eye to World’s Worst Abusers: In an major study published in 2011 while Navi Pillay served as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Watch examined Pillay’s record in the first two years she served as UN human rights chief. UN Watch found that Pillay turned a blind eye to most of the world’s worst abusers, being completely silent on abuses in Cuba, North Korea, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Belarus, Syria, and 27 other countries rated “Not Free” by Freedom House. During the first two years of her tenure, Pillay issued 21 statements on countries in the Middle East and North Africa. However, of these, 9 were on Israel, the only democracy in the region.

• Exposing UN Pillay Commission’s Targeting of Israel: In wake of the 11-day Hamas-Israel war of May 2021, the Palestinians and Pakistan, acting on behalf of the Islamic group of states, initiated an emergency session of the U.N. Human Rights Council and succeeded in creating yet another Commission of Inquiry targeting Israel and incentivizing Hamas. Whereas all past inquiries on Israel lasted for about a year, this one is perpetual—it goes on forever. UN rules require that commissioners be impartial. Pillay is the opposite. On repeated occasions, Pillay has publicly accused Israel of being an Apartheid state. She has even signed petitions lobbying governments to “Sanction apartheid Israel.” Navi Pillay was appointed to ensure a guilty verdict against Israel, to label it an Apartheid state with the UN’s imprimatur. In July 2025, Pillay resigned as Chair of the commission to avoid potential U.S. sanctions.

• Legal Brief on Pillay’s Bias, Call to Resign: In February 2022,UN Watch submitted a 30-page legal brief to the United Nations detailing how Navi Pillay violated UN rules by failing to disclose numerous of her prior statements that directly prejudge the matters before the inquiry, and calling on her to resign or recuse herself. As the brief demonstrated, Pillay lacked the impartiality required under UN guidelines due to a long history of public statements and actions pre-judging Israel.

• Nobel Hypocrisy—Pillay Boycotted Ceremony for Liu Xiaobo: When jailed human rights hero Liu Xiaobo was given the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, Foreign Policy reported that Pillay gave in to Chinese pressure and declined an invitation to attend the Oslo ceremony, falsely claiming that she needed to be at a low-level Geneva event — one to which she didn’t bother to show in other years.  Then she added to the dissembling by saying she was never invited.

• 40 NGOs Urge U.N. Rights Chief to Attend Oslo Nobel Ceremony and Show Support for Chinese Dissident: An international coalition of 40 human rights and non-governmental organizations appealed today to U.N. rights chief Navi Pillay to reverse her decision to skip Friday’s Nobel award ceremony for imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. “We urge the High Commissioner to go to Oslo, attend the award ceremony, and convene a press conference that will spotlight the plight of the 1.3 billion Chinese citizens who are systematically denied the basic guarantees of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” said the statement.

• Ignored Iran: Ms. Pillay failed to issue any public statement in response to the well-documented violence against demonstrators in Iran following the June 2009 presidential elections. Her first comment appeared three months after initial reports and video evidence of government-backed paramilitary forces arbitrarily arresting, beating and killing protestors were released. Her welcome call on the Iranian government to “release those detained for peaceful protest, to investigate reports of their ill-treatment, and to ensure respect for human rights” was made only as part of her traditional opening speech at the UN Human Rights Council session in September 2009. She did not give a press conference and chose not to issue a dedicated statement on the matter.

• Endorses Arab-Islamic Assault on Israel: Contrary to the principled statements made by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon an her predecessor, Louise Arbour, Pillay has vocally supported the dictator-dominated UN Human Rights Council’s policy of maintaining a permanent agenda item against Israel — alone of all 193 member states — at every council session.

• Experts Scrutinized Pillay’s Biased Report: In 2022, as the United Nations in Geneva debated the Pillay Report — which turns a blind eye to Palestinian terrorism and embraces the Hamas narrative that Israel is the root cause of all conflict — UN Watch hosted an official UN Side Event, bringing together a panel of renowned experts to challenge the controversial new document. Speakers included Colonel Richard Kemp, Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Corn, Israeli Arab human rights activist Yoseph Haddad, human rights lawyer Anne Herzberg, South African attorney Olga Meshoe Washington, and former Member of Knesset Einat Wilf.

• UN Watch’s 2010 Letter to Pillay on Antisemitism and Double Standards: In an April 27, 2010 letter, UN Watch challenged Pillay’s defense of the Human Rights Council’s permanent agenda item targeting Israel and demanded the removal of antisemitic texts from the UN website. The letter documented how her office censored criticism of repressive regimes while publishing allegations that Israeli doctors stole Palestinian organs and that “Jews everywhere” were complicit in a Holocaust against Palestinians.

• Video: Why the UN’s Navi Pillay Commission Lacks Any Credibility

• Video: Hillel Neuer Confronts Pillay in UN Debate

The post Documents: Navi Pillay’s Extreme Bias & Complicity With Genocide appeared first on UN Watch.

“We are shocked that the Nobel committee honored Navi Pillay. Her troubling record on antisemitism and gross breach of ethics in presiding over a notorious UN commission utterly disqualifies her from such an award. The Nobel Peace Prize should uphold universal human rights and reject antisemitism unequivocally. Honoring Pillay without confronting this record undermines those principles and risks rewarding prejudice rather than advancing peace.”

“In July 2021, Ms. Pillay accepted to chair a Pakistani-sponsored UN Commission of Inquiry into alleged Israeli crimes. The rules of due process require that fact-finders in the human rights field be impartial. Yet prior to accepting this post, Pillay had publicly pronounced herself, in extreme terms, on the very issues that her inquiry is mandated to investigate. In June 2020, she signed a manifesto calling on governments to “Sanction Apartheid Israel.” In June 2021, a month before heading the inquiry, Pillay wrote a letter to President Biden calling to punish Israel for the May 2021 war with Hamas. She has made many more prior prejudicial pronouncements.” (See UN Watch’s Request for Navi Pillay to Recuse Herself For Bias or the Appearance Thereof.)

“This not all. In July 2022, Pillay’s fellow commissioner Miloon Kothari railed against “the Jewish Lobby” and questioned Israel’s right to be a member state of the UN. Mr. Kothari was condemned by the world’s leading democracies, and by top UN officials including Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Astonishingly, however, Navi Pillay defended him.”

“For those reasons, the Mayor of Berlin in 2022 withdrew her support for a town hall event set to honor Navi Pillay, and the award was canceled.”

“By honoring Pillay, the Nobel committee has failed to uphold the principles it seeks to celebrate. International justice depends on impartiality. When an investigator campaigns to punish a country before examining the evidence, she compromises the credibility of both her findings and the institution she represents.

Pillay’s defense of a colleague who invoked “the Jewish lobby” is especially disturbing. A human rights leader should recognize and unequivocally reject antisemitic stereotypes. Her response instead helped shield her colleague from accountability. The Nobel committee should have confronted that record before presenting her as a model of integrity.

The victims of discrimination deserve institutions that apply the same standards to everyone.

Today’s decision sends the wrong message: that achievements elsewhere excuse prejudice against Jews and the abandonment of basic standards of fairness when investigating Israel. That weakens the cause of universal human rights.

The post UN Watch Condemns Nobel Peace Prize for Navi Pillay, Citing Bias and Defense of Antisemitism appeared first on UN Watch.

European universities are struggling to protect their own students. Representing over 160,000 Jewish students across Europe, EUJS President Hanna Veiler addressed UN Watch’s official side event at the 63rd session of the UN Human Rights Council, “Empowering Future Leaders through Human Rights Education,”
exposing the severe physical violence and political intimidation happening on campuses, particularly in the wake of the October 7 massacres.

She explains why abstract commitments to human rights are meaningless if institutions fail to translate them into safe, democratic spaces for everyone.

Prepared Remarks:

Excellencies, distinguished representatives of Permanent Missions, dear colleagues,

Fifteen years after the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training, I believe there is value in reflecting not only on how effectively we teach young people about human rights, but also on whether our educational institutions provide them with the practical capacity to exercise, defend and uphold those rights.

I speak today as President of the European Union of Jewish Students, representing more than 160,000 young Jews across Europe. Much of our work takes place in universities and other educational environments, precisely the spaces in which young people first encounter democratic institutions, organise collectively, engage with opposing views and, in many cases, become politically and socially active.

Our experience has shown us that these environments can be extraordinarily powerful spaces for democratic participation, but also that there can be a considerable distance between teaching human rights as a set of principles and ensuring that those principles shape institutional practice.

This distinction has become particularly visible for Jewish students since the massacre of 7 October 2023 and the subsequent war. Universities across Europe have become important spaces for political debate about Israel and the Middle East. Such debate is a legitimate and necessary part of academic and democratic life. At the same time, Jewish students across Europe have faced harassment, intimidation, exclusion and, in some cases, severe physical violence.

Their connections to Israel, which for many are an integral part of Jewish identity, family life and community, have repeatedly been turned against them. Jewish students have been expected to justify the actions of an Israeli government, pressured to publicly distance themselves from Israel, or treated with suspicion simply for expressing a connection to the country.

Most concerningly, these experiences continue too often to be dismissed, relativized or explained away, while the antisemitic nature of incidents targeting Jewish students is questioned or denied. These experiences have demonstrated the difficulty that educational institutions can face when abstract commitments to human rights have to be translated into decisions in highly polarized environments.

Universities must be capable of protecting freedom of expression and political participation while also recognizing when political discourse crosses into discrimination, harassment or the collective attribution of responsibility to individuals because of their identity. Human rights education therefore cannot end with knowledge of legal frameworks or international declarations.

Young people also need to understand how those principles apply when rights come into tension, when public debate becomes deeply contentious, and when defending the rights of another person may be politically or socially uncomfortable. There is also a broader lesson here that extends far beyond the experience of Jewish students. If human rights education is to be genuinely universal, it must equip young people not only to defend the rights of communities to which they themselves belong, but also to recognize and defend the rights of others.

For Jewish organizations, combating antisemitism cannot be separated from a broader commitment to challenging racism, anti-Muslim hatred and other forms of discrimination. Equally, the defence of democratic freedoms cannotdepend on whether we agree with the person exercising them. The credibility of the human rights framework ultimately depends on the consistent application of its principles.

This is particularly important at a time when young people encounter political information, mobilization and increasingly also misinformation far beyond formal educational settings. Universities and schools therefore have a responsibility that goes beyond transmitting knowledge.

They should provide young people with the capacity to evaluate information critically, understand democratic and human rights institutions, engage constructively across profound disagreement, recognize discrimination and know which mechanisms are available when rights are violated.

They should also provide meaningful opportunities for young people to organize, participate in decision-making and assume responsibility within their institutions.

There is also a broader institutional dimension that we should not ignore. Human rights education cannot be separated from the credibility of the international system in which we ask young people to place their trust. Around the world, young people are taking extraordinary risks to defend fundamental freedoms, often in the face of authoritarian governments that repress dissent, restrict civil society and systematically violate human rights.

Yet some of those same governments continue to participate in international institutions, build political alliances and seek to weaken, obstruct or discredit mechanisms designed to hold states accountable. The Islamic Republic of Iran is one example, but it is by no means the only one.

For young human rights defenders living under repression, this contradiction is not an abstract institutional problem, it directly affects whether international mechanisms can meaningfully support their struggle. If we want young people to believe in the international human rights system, that system must demonstrate that political influence cannot place governments beyond meaningful scrutiny and accountability.

For those of us working with young people, this also means recognizing them not simply as recipients of human rights education, but as actors in the protection of human rights. Across Europe, young people are already leading civil society organizations, responding to discrimination, supporting vulnerable communities and participating in democratic institutions.

If I were to leave one practical recommendation, it would therefore be to strengthen the connection between human rights education and human rights practice. A young person completing their education should understand the principles contained in international human rights instruments, but they should also know how to recognize when those principles are being violated, how to make use of the institutions designed to protect them, how to participate democratically and, crucially, how to defend the rights of people whose identities, experiences or political views may be very different from their own.

If we succeed in doing that, human rights education becomes more than the transmission of knowledge. It becomes part of building the democratic resilience of the next generation.

Thank you.

The post Protecting Democratic Values and Combatting Antisemitism on Campus | Hanna Veiler appeared first on UN Watch.

Holocaust Distortion from U.N. “Expert”: Francesca Albanese claims Jews in Nazi death camps “were called Muslims.” Antisemitism targets “Semitic peoples” and “not just discrimination against Jews.”

Even in Nazi death camps: She cannot name Jew-hatred without replacing the Jews. pic.twitter.com/ipSMTOK0Vu

— UN Watch (@UNWatch) September 24, 2026

Seen over 1.2 million times, UN Watch was the first to expose Albanese’s outrageous claims that Jews in Nazi death camps “were called Muslims” and that antisemitism targets “Semitic peoples” and “not just discrimination against Jews.”

Immediately, Albanese faced widespread condemnation, including from Holocaust Remembrance Center Yad Vashem and Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken, who said Albanese “is pro-Russian and hates Jews.”

@FranceskAlbs ventures into obvious and dangerous historical revisionism with her attempt to recast the Nazi persecution and murder of Jews as merely part of a broader hatred of the “non-white”, non European or “non-Christian.”

Her portrayal of the history of modern antisemitism…

— Yad Vashem (@yadvashem) September 28, 2026

While initially defended by her base, pressure began to mount — including from liberal Italian Senator Raffaella Paita who called her “outburst” as an “attempt to downplay the role of Jews as victims of the Shoah.”

As a result, Albanese was forced to issue a rare apology which only further amplified the story and drew more criticism. In a viral response, Hillel Neuer captured the perception: “Apology not accepted. You are not acting in good faith. You must resign.”

Apology not accepted. You repeatedly campaigned to erase the very meaning of hatred against Jews and engaged in Holocaust inversion. You have apologized before for antisemitic remarks, only to then renege. You are not acting in good faith. You must resign. In the name of God, go. https://t.co/OXI0Jv0q1r

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) September 28, 2026

British-Palestinian peace advocate John Aziz also criticized her lack of understanding. Coming from her own supporters, even Ihab Hassan — who is hostile towards Israel — condemned Albanese for attacking the Jewish state through “distorting the Holocaust” and “the history of antisemitism.”

Quickly thereafter, Albanese returned to her normal voice, making another post which effectively walked back her “sincere apology.” Even quicker, once this was called out by Hillel Neuer, Albanese deleted this new post and hasn’t commented again on the debacle in hopes the story blows over.

DELETED: After I called it out, Francesca Albanese has deleted her post from today (https://t.co/BYt96GM9or) that effectively walked back her “sincere apology” for her not knowing antisemitism targets Jews. Her post had also endorsed a supporter's praise of her “rare virtue.” 🧵 https://t.co/iZeUHPjPK2 pic.twitter.com/XBiIVl7Yto

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) September 29, 2026

Already condemned by over a dozen nations for antisemitism and Holocaust inversion, UN Watch will continuing applying pressure on Albanese until she is forced to resign.

The post Francesca Albanese Forced to Apologize After Being Exposed by UN Watch appeared first on UN Watch.

GENEVA, September 2, 2026 — Ahead of the United Nations’ planned “Durban 25” commemoration on September 28, UN Watch and NGO Monitor today published a video panel of experts examining how the notorious 2001 World Conference Against Racism became a global forum for antisemitism and the demonization of Israel.

The event brought together leading figures who witnessed and confronted the Durban conference and its aftermath: former Canadian justice minister and attorney general Prof. Irwin Cotler; former UN Watch chair David Harris, now Executive Vice Chair of ISGAP; Yad Vashem chief historian Prof. Dina Porat; NGO Monitor President Prof. Gerald Steinberg; and UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer.

The speakers warned that Durban’s legacy continues to shape the systematic targeting of Israel at the United Nations and in international civil society.

“What happened at Durban was truly Orwellian,” said Cotler. “That was a tipping point for the laundering of antisemitism at the UN. What emerged from Durban was the metastasized, newly legalized antisemitism under the cover of the UN.”

“This singling out of Israel has continued to metastasize since,” he added. “Durban is the ‘Mein Kampf’ of today.”

Harris recalled with pride the Sept. 3, 2001 decision by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to withdraw the American delegation from the conference:

Today I have instructed our representatives at the World Conference Against Racism to return home. I have taken this decision with regret, because of the importance of the international fight against racism and the contribution that the Conference could have made to it… I know that you do not combat racism by conferences that produce declarations containing hateful language, some of which is a throwback to the days of “Zionism equals racism;” or supports the idea that we have made too much of the Holocaust; or suggests that apartheid exists in Israel; or that singles out only one country in the world—Israel—for censure and abuse.

Harris explained how the Durban campaign refined the strategy behind the UN’s infamous 1975 “Zionism is racism” resolution.

“Whereas the 1975 effort on Resolution 3379 was a Soviet-Arab concoction, 2001 and thereafter was much more sophisticated: wrapping its agenda in a mantle of political progressivism, of the language of human rights,” said Harris. “The basic strategies and tactics employed then in Durban, and honed in the months leading up to Durban, continue until today with the BDS movement.”

Porat, who attended Durban as a member of the Israeli delegation, described how a conference that was supposed to confront racism abruptly turned against Israel and the Jewish people.

She recalled asking a senior European delegate how this had happened. His answer, Porat said, was startlingly candid: former colonial powers feared demands for compensation from countries they had once ruled, and therefore found a convenient diversion.

“‘The simple solution to this problem was to pick on Israel and the Jews,’” Porat recalled him saying. “He said it so simply and so openly that he left me speechless. That was a blunt and exact explanation of what happened at the Durban Conference.”

Steinberg reviewed the 25-year history of the Durban process and its role in enabling nongovernmental organizations to promote campaigns accusing Israel of racism, apartheid and other international crimes.

Neuer traced Durban’s ideological origins to the UN General Assembly’s 1975 “Zionism is racism” resolution, which he described as the institutional launch of the campaign to portray the Jewish state as inherently illegitimate and racist.

“The UN should be apologizing for Durban—not celebrating it,” said Neuer. “Unless the September 28 meeting unequivocally repudiates the antisemitism that engulfed the 2001 conference and renounces the discriminatory elements of the Durban Declaration that single out Israel, every democracy should refuse to participate.”

The 2001 conference in Durban, South Africa, descended into scenes of open antisemitism. Jewish participants were harassed, antisemitic literature was distributed, and the parallel NGO Forum adopted a declaration branding Israel a “racist, apartheid state” and calling for its international isolation.

In 2021, following a campaign led by UN Watch, 38 democracies refused to participate in the UN’s Durban IV anniversary event.

UN Watch has launched a petition and is now calling on those governments—and other democracies—to withdraw from the September 28, 2026 commemoration.

Watch the full panel on Durban 25

About UN Watch

UN Watch is a Geneva-based non-governmental organization dedicated to holding the United Nations accountable to the principles of its Charter and promoting human rights for all.

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As the 25th anniversary of the World Conference Against Racism is set to take center stage at the United Nations this month, former Canadian Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler outlines the historical trajectory and lasting global impact of the 2001 Durban conference.

“I can still hear the chants at Durban… the struggle against apartheid requires a dismantling of Israel.”

The post 25 Years After Durban: Irwin Cotler on the Institutionalization of Antisemitism appeared first on UN Watch.

Ahead of the UN General Assembly’s planned “Durban 25” celebration on September 28, UN Watch and NGO Monitor hosted a special event to remember the notorious hatefest that was the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism, in Durban, South Africa.

NGO Monitor President Prof. Gerald Steinberg addressed the 25-year history since the Durban conference.

UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer discussed the UN’s 1975 “Zionism is racism” resolution and the institutional launch of Israel’s demonization as a “racist” state.

David Harris, Executive Vice Chair of ISGAP and former Chair of UN Watch, detailed U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s decision to withdraw the United States from the conference.

Prof. Dina Porat, chief historian at Yad Vashem, recounted the hostility faced by the Israeli delegation and the NGO Forum’s refusal to acknowledge antisemitism.

Prof. Irwin Cotler analyzed how Durban weaponized human rights language to launder institutional antisemitism under the protective cover of the UN.

Irwin Cotler: “This was going to be the first international human rights conference where anti-racism was going to be the theme. What happened at Durban was truly Orwellian. That was a tipping point for the laundering of antisemitism at the UN. What emerged from Durban was the metastasized, newly legalized antisemitism under the cover of the UN. This singling out of Israel has continued to metastasize since. Durban is the Mein Kampf of today.”

David Harris: “Whereas the 1975 effort on Resolution 3379 (“Zionism is Racism”) was a Soviet-Arab concoction, 2001 and thereafter was much more sophisticated: wrapping its agenda in a mantle of political progressivism, of the language of human right. The basic strategies and tactics employed then in Durban, and honed in the months leading up to Durban, continuing until today with the BDS movement.”

Dina Porat: “I was a member of the Israeli delegation to Durban. Instead of dealing with the burning problem of genuinely confronting racism, which was increasing in Europe after the waves of immigration, Israel and the Jewish people were put on the table. So I went up to the Belgian representative, who was chairing the sessions, and said: ‘Could you tell me what is going on? How did it, with a snap of a finger, turn against us?’

He took me aside, as though explaining something so obvious. He said: ‘Listen, most of the countries that have delegations representing them — from South America, Africa and the Far East, mainly those that were under colonial rule — see racism very differently. They don’t see the problems that we see in Europe today or in North America. They remember, and cannot forget, what happened during colonial times. And what they want to use the conference for is to obtain compensation for what they suffered under colonial rule.’

‘Just imagine,’ he told me, ‘what would happen if Spain had to compensate so many countries in South America, Portugal had to compensate Brazil, and we Belgians had to compensate the Congo. We all know what Belgium robbed from the Congo.’

‘So I tell you frankly: The simple solution to this problem was to pick on Israel and the Jews.’

He said it so simply and so openly that he left me speechless. That was a blunt and exact explanation of what happened at the Durban Conference.”

The post 25 Years After Durban: The Lasting Impact of the UN World Conference against Racism appeared first on UN Watch.

The remark follows last week’s Financial Times interview in which outgoing Secretary-General António Guterres admitted “we have many [rapporteurs] that are totally out of control, from the point of view of the Secretariat.”

Guterres had previously described Albanese privately as a “horrible person,” according to former U.S. antisemitism envoy Deborah Lipstadt. His spokesman has also said the Secretariat “doesn’t agree with much of what she says.”

Albanese responded by claiming the Secretary-General “never meant what the pro-Apartheid scavengers spread” and accusing critics of being “genocide enablers.”

UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer noted that Albanese herself has said she has “never heard from” Guterres, making her poorly placed to interpret his words.

“Albanese has functioned as Hamas’s de facto spokesperson at the UN. Many leading democracies have condemned her for Holocaust inversion and other ethical violations, making her the first UN human rights official in history to be so denounced. The United States sanctioned her. Guterres called her a horrible person in private. Now Ambassador Waltz confirms what senior UN officials have been saying all along,” said Neuer.

“Albanese has functioned as Hamas’s de facto spokesperson at the UN,” said Neuer. “Iran’s regime and its terrorist proxies routinely praise her. But numerous democracies have called for her removal, condemning her for Holocaust inversion and other ethical violations, making her the first UN human rights official in history to be so denounced.”

“The United States sanctioned her. Guterres called her a horrible person in private. Now Ambassador Waltz confirms it: senior UN officials knew she was out of control. A human rights system that cannot remove its most notorious antisemite is not independent. It is broken,” said Neuer.

UN Watch reiterated its call for Albanese’s immediate removal, and for real accountability mechanisms before Guterres leaves office in December.

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