UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer was interviewed on the Fox News Rundown podcast with Eben Brown to discuss what to expect from the upcoming U.N. General Assembly, U.S. sanctions on U.N. officials, Israel’s strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar, and the ongoing controversy over UNRWA.
Eben Brown:
Later this month, heads of state will gather in New York City for the United Nations General Assembly. President Trump will address the body. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu might. This year’s General Assembly comes at a precarious time in world events. President Trump is back in office. Russia is still making war on Ukraine, and Israel is still fighting to retrieve hostages taken by Hamas terrorists. It also comes at a time when the U.S. is challenging the effectiveness of certain U.N.-sponsored organizations, especially ones supposedly dedicated to world health and, of course, the Palestinians. The Trump administration has intensely cut back U.S. funding of many of these groups, and has even begun targeting individuals within the UN’s umbrella, it says are working against American interests — namely Francesca Albanese, the U.N.’s lead on Palestinian issues, who is often accused of bias and even spreading outright falsehoods. She is now under U.S. sanctions.
Hillel Neuer:
Clearly, the U.S. is taking a strong stand — I would say, tougher than ever before.
Eben Brown:
Hillel Neuer is the Executive Director of UN Watch. Our conversation took place mere moments after news broke Tuesday of Israel’s strike on Hamas leaders residing in the Qatari capital of Doha.
Hillel Neuer:
The U.S., for the first time in history, has sanctioned a purported U.N. official. I say “purported” because Francesca Albanese has the title of the U.N. Rapporteur on Palestine, but in fact, her supposed renewal that was meant to take place in April was never lawfully carried out. UN Watch has shown in our reports how the basic procedure of the United Nations Human Rights Council was flagrantly violated. The United States made objections. The Netherlands publicly announced their objection. Hungary and Argentina sent in letters. We submitted a 56-page dossier. All of that was legally required to be addressed by the Council, and they never did so. So, the only way a renewal can take place is if there are no objections — and there were, and the Council ignored those objections. So in fact, her renewal never took place lawfully. She has no immunity. That’s why there was nothing stopping Secretary Rubio from sanctioning this Hamas supporter. She is de facto a spokesperson for Hamas, and that’s why yesterday in U.S. federal court in Colorado, Christian Friends of Israel filed a lawsuit against her for defamation and libel for the things that she said about them because they dare to support Israel. So bravo to Secretary Rubio for banning that Hamas supporter from entering America. And look, let’s be honest, what’s going to happen in New York in the week of September 22nd — it’s primarily a “catwalk for dictators,” and those are the words of world chess champion Garry Kasparov, former world chess champion, Russian dissident. So the U.N. General Assembly is a catwalk for dictators. And he’s right. We’re going to see on the catwalk — you know, Erdogan of Turkey is a dictator. We’re going to see Qatar — dictatorship, the president of Iran — dictatorship, the former terrorist from Syria. I mean, the list goes on and on. And they love the U.N. They love the U.N. They see it as a counterbalance to America. They see it as, you know, a way of tying up Gulliver and using the language and images of international law and credibility when in fact, they’re a club of dictatorships.
Eben Brown:
At the top of this club is a person who has the title of Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres. Most Americans don’t pay too much attention, I think, to the inner-workings of the UN, or even some of the outer-workings of the UN, certainly not its bureaucracy or its governance. But this is a person who was, I think decidedly, has taken sides in the Israel-Hamas conflict. I still don’t think, to this day, he ever actually condemned the October 7th attacks. I could be wrong about that.
Hillel Neuer:
No, I think he did, but then he quickly added — you know, this was like two weeks after the massacre, mass rape, massacre of families — Guterres did condemn the attacks, but then he said, however, he said, you know, “Nothing happens in a vacuum.” “These attacks did not happen in a vacuum.” He said: “These attacks did not happen in a vacuum.” And then he went on to enumerate numerous alleged grievances by the Palestinians over decades against Israel. In effect, he justified the attacks one grievance after another, saying, “Well, things didn’t happen in a vacuum,” you know, as if terrorism could ever be justified, and we’re supposed to believe — rightfully — that terrorism can never be justified. No matter what you think, what injustice you perceive, you can’t slaughter innocents. But Guterres was quick to say, “I condemn the attacks, but they didn’t happen in a vacuum,” when he could have said — and of course, he’s partly right in the fact that nothing happens in a vacuum. Nothing we do in our lives happens in a vacuum. But had he been more to the point, he would have said, “Nothing happens in a vacuum. Where do these terrorists come from? What schools do they go to?” Well, they went to UN schools. 90% of Gazans, according to the UNRWA, the infamous UN agency for Palestinians — their legal advisor, Johann Soufi, said on French TV last year that 90% of Gazans are graduates of UNRWA. Well, that means roughly 90% of the terrorists who massacred families and committed horrific acts were UNRWA alumni. That’s Mr. Guterres. He’s been in office for many years, so he should take responsibility. It’s not by accident that they invaded Israel because they were taught from a young age, “Your home is not in Gaza, your home is in Tel Aviv, and it belongs to you, and you should dismantle it violently.” And that’s what they did.
Eben Brown:
This has been, I think again, another year in which things have changed dramatically for the U.N., and a lot of that comes from the fact that the U.S. — especially with the Trump administration coming back to power, or the new Trump administration in power — had kind of squished those purse strings yet again, like they did the first time. That begins to affect what the U.N. can and can’t do, because they need money. And I think everyone knows the biggest funder of the U.N. has been the U.S., specifically the U.S. taxpayer. So they want to still continue these missions, but they have to face the fact that they are potentially running out of money, or certainly don’t have the cash flow they used to have, and the fact that at least one person has been put under sanctions, in this case, Albanese, they must realize that the Trump administration could do this further.
Hillel Neuer:
Yes, that’s right. Look, the U.S. cuts in donations to the U.N. are very substantial already. I’m based in Geneva, Switzerland, where there are maybe 25,000 U.N. and related staff from all kinds of U.N.-affiliated agencies, like the International Labor Organization, World Health Organization, and the Office of the U.N. Human Rights Commissioner. You know, many of these agencies are facing substantial cuts, and hundreds of jobs have been cut. And so it’s real. It’s real. And you know, decades ago, about some 25 years ago, John Bolton had said, “If U.N. headquarters were leveled today, it wouldn’t make a world of difference.” And so the question is, you know, when hundreds of these jobs are cut, what difference is it making to things that really count? And look, the U.N. has the potential to do good. There are hungry people in the world. We do need agencies to feed them when there are emergencies. But tragically, much of the U.N. has been hijacked by radical politics. And again, Gaza is a classic case — not the only one — but it’s a classic case, because there, you know, you could have real aid agencies actually helping people and giving food and settling refugees. Instead, Guterres gave the order: “Only UNRWA can deal with it,” and UNRWA is not a neutral agency whose mission is to give out food. Their mission is to tell Palestinians that “You suffered an injustice and you have the right to return and dismantle Israel.” If it were not the case, then there would be a dozen other U.N. agencies that could be giving out the food: UNHCR, UNDP, World Health Organization. Those are the agencies that do so all around the world. So the reality is that much of the U.N. is hijacked by radical politics. Again, I appeared just this morning before the United Nations Human Rights Council — “Human Rights Council,” let’s put that in scare quotes — because the members include Cuba, a police state that arrests teenagers for demanding democracy; Qatar, that has, you know, a million enslaved laborers; China, a regular member of the Human Rights Council, which has a million Muslims in camps, locks up anyone who dares to protest within moments; and, you know, Vietnam, which is a dictatorship that supports torture, is a member. China, Cuba, Qatar, Vietnam — these are the regular members of the Human Rights Council. More than half are full-on dictatorships. That’s the reality. And I think it’s high time that the U.S. and other democracies ought to speak out and say, “No more.”
Eben Brown:
Our guest is Hillel Neuer of UN Watch. We’re discussing the upcoming United Nations General Assembly later this month on the Fox News Rundown Evening Edition. Please like, subscribe, share with your friends. We’ll have more straight ahead. You mentioned, you’ve been talking here a lot about UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine. Earlier today, just really shortly before we began our conversation, explosions were heard in Doha, Qatar, and the Israelis are now taking responsibility for that, saying they targeted those top chief Hamas Politburo members that have been living really in opulence in Doha, commanding the Hamas forces in Gaza from a very, very safe distance, where you know they themselves are not getting any blood on them. They might have been taken out by this strike. We’ll know more later. But you posted a photograph to your Twitter account, to your X account, that’s very pertinent here. Can you tell me about that photo?
Hillel Neuer:
Sure. You know, several days ago, Iranian media and Hamas media published a photo of a beautiful, opulent room in Doha, Qatar, where there was a meeting between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. So this is the Foreign Minister of the Islamic regime in Iran, which is responsible for terrorism and assassinations across the free world. You know, in New York City, just a few months ago, I attended — I was in federal court to witness the trial of three criminal assassins who tried to kill my friend, Masih Alinejad. She’s an Iranian-born journalist, a hero who speaks out against the abuses against women in Iran and has millions of followers. She’s the most courageous person that I know, and she now lives in Brooklyn, and Iran hired a criminal gang, some Central Asian gang — that Iran is very clever: they don’t necessarily send Iranian assassins. They’ll hire criminal gangs in local countries. So they send criminals to assassinate her in Brooklyn, and a guy with a submachine gun was caught — an AK-47 — outside her home in Brooklyn, ready to assassinate her. And this was about a year or so after they tried to kidnap her, take her to Venezuela and then to Iran.
So the Iranian regime, Foreign Minister Araghchi, is sitting there in Qatar with his Iranian delegation, and opposite him is the Hamas delegation. These are the Hamas leaders that are still alive as of a few days ago, and one of them, one of the senior Hamas leaders, is a gentleman named Suhail Al-Hindi. And Suhail Al-Hindi is known to me because I’ve been monitoring his actions as a long-time, three-decades-long UNRWA school teacher. I’m going to say that again: a school teacher paid by the U.N. with our money, U.S. taxpayers were giving some $300 million a year to UNRWA to employ Suhail Al-Hindi as a school teacher, as a principal. Eventually, he was a school principal and was eventually head of the entire staff union in Gaza — 13,000 employees. And he is also a Hamas terror chief. A Hamas terror chief. So you say it and you don’t believe it, UNRWA school teacher, principal, head of the UNRWA staff union, again, an agency that we’ve been paying for up until about two years ago, was a Hamas terror chief, and is one of the people who was part of the Hamas delegation last week, and time will tell whether he was part of the Hamas group that according to reports, was assassinated in a bomb blast in Qatar today.
Eben Brown:
What does an organization like yours do during the UN General Assembly? Are you running around, pounding on doors, knocking on — and trying to get attention to certain people? I mean, I imagine this is a big deal for an agency such as yours.
Hillel Neuer:
Yes, it is a big deal. The truth is that, because we are not a member state, we have status at the UN, which we obtained, you know, decades ago, thanks to U.S. help at the time, in 2002. We have status as an observer at the U.N., or what’s called an NGO, a non-governmental organization. And as such, we can enter U.N. premises, and, you know, meet with delegations and so forth, but not during that week. So actually, that week, it’s sort of all bets are off, and they only let country delegations attend the U.N. meeting. So I don’t have access to the U.N. during that time. I do hope to be in New York for part of the week. I do hope to be there as a commentator, to help explain to the world what’s going on, and whether it’s dictatorships who gather to try to attack America and Israel or the democracies. Let’s not forget we have something unprecedented: major democracies, European countries, France, the U.K., also my native Canada, I’m ashamed to say, and Australia have announced that they intend to recognize a Palestinian state, and that they intend to do so as part of a summit that will take place on Monday, September 22nd. And that’ll be a day before President Trump addresses the opening of the UN on the 23rd. But the day before, Macron with Saudi Arabia, but really led by Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, has been pushing to declare a state, even as they acknowledge that there is no state.Okay, Ramallah has a Palestinian Authority, local government that basically governs several cities. They take out the garbage and do a few more things. These are governments that continue to support terrorism. The PA, as we know in America, has a “pay-to-slay” program — those who commit terrorism, just like yesterday, Palestinian terrorists gunned down a rabbi and other innocent civilians at a bus stop in Jerusalem. Those families will get money for the rest of their lives. You get rewarded if you kill Jews. That’s the Palestinian Authority. And then much of so-called Palestine is run by Hamas. Gaza, up until recently, was entirely run by Hamas. Now Israel controls part of the territory, so there is no democratic Palestine. You know, Abbas is in the 20th or 21st year of his four-year term. He hasn’t held elections in over 15 years.
Eben Brown:
Hillel Neuer, you are with UN Watch. Thank you so much for being with us on the Fox News Rundown Evening Edition.
Hillel Neuer:
Thank you for having me.
