In a powerful new interview with Brazilian media outlet Brasil Paralelo, Hillel Neuer exposed the moral collapse of the United Nations and its complicity in whitewashing terror.
Full transcript:
Flávio Barretto: Hello, I’m Flávio Barretto, and today we have the honor of welcoming Hillel Neuer, director of UN Watch, an NGO that seeks to monitor the actions of the UN.
He is also the founder and has been active in the cause of human rights and freedom.
Hi, hello, nice meeting you. Thanks for being here with us. And just to start—what brings you to Brazil?
Hillel Neuer: Well, I came, actually, for an organization that invited me — which, by chance, has the same name as I do. There’s an organization called Hillel International, which is a terrific organization celebrating its 20th year in Rio de Janeiro.
They work with Jewish students on university campuses. They bring them classes, teach them about Judaism, leadership, community development — building the next generation of community leaders. People who are engaged with Jewish identity, Jewish culture, Jewish values, but also engaged in trying to make Brazil and this world a better place.
Really a wonderful organization that I was actually involved with when I was in Canada, with the Hillel movement that existed there. So, they celebrated their 20-year anniversary in Rio, and I was there for a very beautiful event.
And then here in São Paulo, they launched the organization to help teach Jewish students and give them education, identity, and culture. We had a wonderful evening here as well. So, terrific organization — and I’m glad they brought me here.
Flávio Barretto: What is UN Watch? What are its goals? When was it founded? And how did you come to be with them?
Hillel Neuer: It’s actually a product of liberal internationalism in its best sense. Some of the intellectuals who were surrounding Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke about international peace, security, and fundamental freedoms.
So, most people can agree on many of the principles in the United Nations Charter — and also in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But of course, governments tend to become corrupt. And certainly at the world body, where, first of all, many of the governments are not democracies — China, Russia, Venezuela, etc. — that already gives it a certain character.
And then, of course, even the governments that are democracies — the UN is so far from the people that it’s not really held accountable. So much happens in obscurity. Very little transparency. Very little accountability, if any.
So a lot of things wrong are happening there — things that are in violation of what the UN was meant to be. Our organization was founded to hold them accountable.
Our founder was an interesting person. His name — he’s no longer alive — was Morris Abram. He was a civil rights leader. A lawyer from the South in America, from Georgia. He was very active with Martin Luther King, fighting for equal rights for Black people in the United States in the 1950s and 60s.
Eventually, Morris Abram — he was also a Jewish leader — was head of the American Jewish Committee and of the movement for free Soviet Jews. He was eventually made United States Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.
And after he retired from being US ambassador, he saw what was happening at the UN. He thought: the UN isn’t going away, we need it — but it has to be held accountable. So he created UN Watch.
We’ve always had a general focus on holding the UN accountable, helping human rights victims, fighting dictatorships, and also fighting antisemitism. We are the leading group that is exposing the pathological anti-Israel bias that happens virtually every day at the United Nations.
Flávio Barretto: Thanks for the introduction. Let’s explore the beginning of the UN. The UN was founded in 1945 by 50 countries, among which were authoritarian regimes such as Russia and China — the USSR at the time. The main goal then was reaching and keeping peace. The world was in ruins after World War Two, and right off the bat, you had these different countries with different sets of values — not all of them cherished freedom, equality before the law, and human rights. So, how do you see that dichotomy right at the start of the UN?
Hillel Neuer: Yes, you’re quite right. You could say the creation of the UN was somewhat of a balance between idealism and realism — pragmatism.
The idealism is expressed in the United Nations Charter, which does speak about having a world in larger freedom, a world at peace, and so forth. And the reality is that, indeed, as you indicated, it was the victors of World War Two — the alliance that had defeated Hitler, primarily the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union — who agreed to create this organization.
It was kind of a second try, because the first attempt was the League of Nations, created in Geneva — and we still use their building, which was inherited by the UN. That first attempt failed, and this was sort of round two.
Winston Churchill said, “Better jaw-jaw than war-war.” That was kind of the thinking — yes, there was idealism. We had this horrible cataclysm, millions killed, and so there was that idealistic hope: let’s come together. But there was also pragmatism — you wanted to have those at the table who had had a certain control.
Right away at the Security Council, Stalin got the veto. So, critics will say that, right from the start, it was undermined — and that’s a fair criticism. But the thinking was to have some kind of balance between those with power, and trying to ensure that another world war wouldn’t happen again. So that was the thing.
Certainly, the fault lines were visible early on. I mean, the Cold War began very quickly after the creation of the UN. And in many ways, the UN, for fifty-odd years, was frozen. Many things could never get done at the UN because it was stalemated by the Cold War.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, suddenly, the UN became a bit more active in certain things. But even from the early days, you saw it, for example the influence of the Soviet Union when they were drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
There are all kinds of social rights in there that a classic supporter of civil and political rights might find foreign, and would say, “These don’t belong in a human rights declaration.” There was a strong push by the Soviets to include their kind of socialist — if you want, Marxist, communist — ideas and language.
So you had a very different United Nations starting from the late ’60s. There were battles when they were drafting the Universal Declaration, and in the years afterwards. It’s something that was there from the beginning and needs to be acknowledged.
And of course, over time, it got much worse. You had so many others joining — who made this alliance of dictatorships, the anti-Western alliance, the anti-Israel alliance — more or less the same countries. It made it even worse, you could say, than it was at the beginning.
Certainly, the numbers changed. At the beginning, like you said, there were about 50 odd countries. A good number of them were democracies — not perfect, but democracies nonetheless.
Then, by the 1960s, you have decolonization, and you now have 150 countries. Many of them were not democracies, and many were influenced by the Soviet Union to turn against the West — America, and sometimes Israel as a proxy. So then you had a very different United Nations, starting from late 60s.
Flávio Barretto: Yeah. And after World War Two, the world went into a period of peace. There was a Cold War, but it was a war of deception and proxy wars.
Do you think — and in Europe and the United States, there was a long period of peace until the early 21st century — do you think the UN had an important role to play in that long period of peace in the developed countries?
Hillel Neuer: Even, let’s say, in Europe, for example — yeah, I doubt it. I don’t think the UN was very involved. No.
The UN at its best, if there are two warring parties that want to reach an agreement, the UN is the technical team that can go back and forth — you know, a bit of a messenger service.
And the peacekeepers aren’t really keeping the peace, but they can create some distance between two parties that themselves are not interested in war. If one or the other party is interested, the UN’s not going to do anything.
So the fact that there was peace in Europe was probably because of — I don’t know — missiles that Ronald Reagan sent and stuck in Germany to push back the Soviets. It wasn’t because of any UN action.
Flávio Barretto: So, do you believe that the UN can actually make a difference in reaching peace now that we have a relatively tense period geopolitically? We have the Israel–Gaza war conflict. We have the Ukraine war. We have Donald Trump. We have China and Putin and growing tensions.
Do you believe the UN, if restored, can make a difference in this scenario? And how would you — would you think the UN’s role would be to improve this situation?
Hillel Neuer: The UN does not have a positive role to play, unfortunately. The way that the UN is today — the powers that be at the UN — on the various issues you mentioned, I can’t think of anything positive that they have to contribute.
Now, in an ideal world, if there were free democracies that would stand up at the UN, push back against the dictatorships — if we had fewer dictatorships and more courageous democracies — we’d have a different UN.
But the UN that we have today is very much an anti-Western alliance — not always, at different times you can have different coalitions that arise.
There was a coalition that arose against Putin. It didn’t always get a huge majority, but the pro-Russia groups were a bit quieter. So you had, for example — I’m going to speculate on the number — but you might have had 80 voting yes, maybe even a bit more, to condemn Putin for invading Ukraine, and maybe 25 defending him.
So that’s a nice majority — maybe 80 to 25, more or less. But still, it’s 80 countries that are abstaining.
There you have an example where the EU was very mobilized — that’s like 30 countries — and they pull in the South Koreas and the Japans and those who vote with them: Canada, Australia, and whatnot.
And the other countries in the world were hesitant to support Putin. There are cases where, with vigorous leadership by Western democracies, on certain occasions, they can play a positive role. It is the exception.
Many of the things you say — talk about Donald Trump — there is a natural anti-Western alliance in the UN. So they have a natural tendency to push back, certainly when America is in a conservative phase.
And Donald Trump is unique — he’s his own kind of animal. But even if it was George W. Bush, or whoever it was, the UN is constantly — many of the elements are seeking to push against America and somehow to restrict or restrain America, to see themselves as a counterforce.
So, on most of the issues that you described, there is not a majority there — with a few exceptions — to play a positive role at the UN.
So, if something positive happens, it’s usually despite the UN, not because of the UN.
Flávio Barretto: So, would you summarize the role of UN Watch as a force to avoid the current state of the UN from making things worse, rather than helping it make things better?
Hillel Neuer: Yes, yes, I think that’s correct. Look, we are trying to make things better. And again, from time to time, you can find a majority on a certain issue. Trying to think of an example — you know, North Korea doesn’t have many allies, so you can pass a resolution on North Korea. You can pass a resolution sometimes on Iran — not the strongest resolution, but something from time to time.
So, yeah, we’re constantly setting the bar on what the UN should be doing and calling them out when they do the horrible things — which are sort of every day — like electing some of the worst dictatorships to high positions on human rights bodies or creating mechanisms that defend dictatorships.
I’ll give an example, which will sound ridiculous, but it’s true. About 10 years ago, the United Nations Human Rights Council created a mandate — a position with a title: Special Rapporteur Against Unilateral Coercive Measures. That’s doublespeak, or — I don’t know what to call it — it’s a euphemism for sanctions.
When America, Britain, Canada, the EU impose sanctions on Maduro, on Iran, on Sudan — because they’re murdering their own people — and it’s a small measure to put pressure on those dictatorships, the dictatorships created this position to say the sanctions are illegal and against human rights. It was created by Cuba, with the help of Iran and others.
And there’s an expert — a woman from Belarus, very close to the Russian regime. Her name is Alena Douhan. She goes around the world. She shows up in Caracas, meets with Maduro, and says: “You, Mr. Maduro, Mr. President, you are a victim of human rights violations because of Western sanctions. All the problems of Venezuela are because of Western sanctions.”
And she’s from the UN — Human Rights. So he says, “Wonderful. You’re great.” And he takes her report and goes to New York. Maduro says, “The UN expert said…”
Then she went to Tehran. She put on the hijab for a press conference — behind her is a picture of Ayatollah Khamenei and Ayatollah Khomeini — and she says, “Iran, there are problems because of Western sanctions.”
She went to Syria under Assad. She went to China, where a million Muslim Uyghurs were thrown into camps. And she said, “No, I went to that province — Xinjiang — and everything is fine.”
That same year, she received $200,000 — her office did — as a gift from China. She said it was for her office. No one is showing the accounts. We don’t know what’s happening with the money.
So this is a recurring phenomenon at the UN — that human rights mechanisms are twisted, subverted, and used to shield dictatorships. That’s the kind of day-to-day battles that we’re in, where it’s hard to even speak about the kind of positive impact you’re referring to.
What you’re speaking about is getting the UN to do the right thing sometimes, but for us, often, just trying to root out the infection is a lot of work.
Flávio Barretto: And you have an ongoing campaign today to replace or fire Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur for Palestine. Could you explain this campaign?
Hillel Neuer: Yes. Well, on April 4th, we expect that she will come up for reappointment. Who is Francesca Albanese? She is the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine. That means she’s supposed to be an investigator — to speak out on human rights in Palestine. In fact, she only condemns Israel.
Actually, the job — the details of the position — says: to investigate Israel’s violations. So, actually, the job the UN gave her is to investigate only Israel. And they picked her because she’s the most vitriolic hater of Israel — and that’s who they wanted. They gave her a UN title and UN immunity. She goes around the world and says, “Hamas is legitimate resistance.”
She says openly antisemitic things that you would see from a neo-Nazi. She says, “America is subjugated by the Jewish lobby.” “America subjugated by the Jewish lobby” — that’s straight out of a white supremacist, neo-Nazi, Adolf Hitler vocabulary. And she’s a UN expert. It’s really shocking.
When she was appointed on April 1st, 2022, we objected. We made the case. But they picked her because that’s what they wanted.
Over the past three years, she has repeatedly legitimized Hamas violence. On the day of the massacre on October 7th — when 1,200 Jews were killed in one day — she wrote, “Wait, wait, wait, you have to put their violence in context. There’s a way to understand it. It’s a response to Israel’s aggression.”
This is the day of the massacre. And she’s about to be reappointed.
We have a very fierce campaign that we fought. So far, we couldn’t get one member state — the Human Rights Council has 47 members — we couldn’t get one of them to officially object to her being reappointed.
We did get — other than Israel — Argentina under Milei sent in a letter. Hungary sent in a letter. The U.S. Congress sent in a letter. Forty-two French MPs and ten members of the European Parliament — here and there, different groups, different people.
But we couldn’t get France. We couldn’t get Germany, even though both of them have condemned her for her antisemitism — which is very rare for a European country to do, let alone condemn a UN expert for racism or antisemitism.
But she was condemned this past year — by France twice, by Germany once — and yet they are not willing to object, for various reasons we can speculate on.
The Netherlands publicly said, “We don’t want her to be there. We oppose it.” But they didn’t send in the formal letter.
So the President of the Human Rights Council — who is Swiss and changes every year — can say, “We have our custom of automatic reappointment. We haven’t received an official objection from any member of the Council. Therefore, she’s reappointed.”
And that’s how it’s looking at this stage, which is shocking, because she is one of the most notorious antisemites on the world stage today.
Flávio Barretto: Yeah. And I’d like to explore this antisemitism that has been growing to very dangerous levels. I went through Francesca’s social media. I picked dozens of criticisms towards Israel and its actions in the conflict, but I couldn’t find one criticism of the actions of Hamas — nothing.
And when October 7th is mentioned, it’s so trivial. The approach to October 7th shows no empathy for the level of violence — a direct attack on civilians, with complete disregard for any Geneva Convention.
So why is that? Why is there this level of condoning antisemitism and this ideology that is spreading all over Europe and the United States? Afterwards, I’d like to talk about the universities in the United States. But why is there this level of UN-backed rising antisemitism?
Hillel Neuer: Well, you’re quite right about her Twitter feed. It is full of basically Hamas propaganda. And if she talks about October 7th, as you said, it’s not sincere — and the lack of empathy, as you said, is manifest and shocking. Where does this come from? And again, when you speak about this person — because she has said textbook statements that are literally the definition of antisemitism — saying “the Jews control the country,” saying, as she does, that “Israel is like Adolf Hitler — a Nazi.”
Sadly, yes. I understand that in Brazil, in February 2024, President Lula went to Africa — I think it was Ethiopia, at an African Summit — and he compared the actions of Israel to Adolf Hitler killing Jews in the Holocaust. Which was disgusting.
So, sadly, there are certain individuals — including prominent ones — who have brought us back to a place we hoped never to return to.
We grew up, it seems, in a golden age — at least on the question of fighting antisemitism. Before the Holocaust, in polite society — in Canada, in Europe — you could say, “I don’t like Jews,” or “They’re like this, they’re like that,” and exclude them from clubs. You could even have signs saying, “No Jews allowed.”
After the Holocaust — after 6 million Jews were slaughtered — people were ashamed. That kind of antisemitism still existed, but it made a big retreat. There was a taboo against crass, open antisemitism.
Anyone who grew up in the 70 years after World War II benefited from a rare time — certainly in Western society, and I presume here in Brazil as well — where Jews probably experienced the least amount of antisemitism in maybe a thousand years. And it seems like that taboo has largely been erased.
Francesca Albanese — in my work, and I’ve been doing this for about 20 years — reminds me of a predecessor of hers: a man named Richard Falk. He had the same UN position a few years back. He also said, “Hamas are very lovely people.”
He promoted the 9/11 conspiracy theory — that America attacked the World Trade Center itself to justify the wars in Iraq. He supported some of the people making those ridiculous and obscene claims. He also said a lot of horrible things about Jews — even though he was born Jewish himself — and he was a very nasty character. Viciously anti-Israel. Anti-American. And in his own strange way, somewhat antisemitic too.
When we called him out, we got Ban Ki-moon — the UN Secretary-General at the time — to condemn him, both in print and in person at the Human Rights Council. That was very powerful. The British Parliament, the Canadian Parliament, the U.S. Congress — even Human Rights Watch (which is far left and very anti-Israel) — were so embarrassed that they removed Richard Falk from one of their committees. It was in Santa Barbara, California. So it’s not that long ago. We’re talking maybe ten years ago. He was elected in 2008, so actually a bit more than ten years — but still relatively recent. Back then, the taboos still existed. Today, those same taboos are gone.
Francesca Albanese — if she were saying the same things and had been made a UN expert back then — she would not be welcome at Georgetown, Princeton, Harvard, or any leading university in Europe. It was a different time.
But after October 7th, there’s no question that the taboo around antisemitism has fallen. We are facing a tsunami of it around the world. And to me — and to many others — it feels like we’ve gone back in history. Whether it’s the 1930s or even the 1920s, it’s a time before the postwar taboo that I mentioned.
Flávio Barretto: So, just to make sure I understood correctly — you’re saying that before October 7th, 2023, someone like Francesca Albanese — with that level of antisemitism — wouldn’t be welcome at American universities like Princeton or Columbia. And now she is?
Hillel Neuer: Well, to sharpen the point, I’d say it was a steady erosion. It wasn’t black and white — it wasn’t October 6th like this, and October 7th like that. There was a gradual deterioration, and then October 7th was the next level — it was antisemitism on steroids. That’s what I think happened.
I mean, those who hate Jews — in the past, they’d say: “We hate Jews because they killed our Lord.” Or: “We hate Jews because they’re racially inferior.” Or: “We hate Jews because they’re communists.” After World War II, those arguments didn’t quite work anymore.
Antisemitism — and the only way to truly understand it — is that it’s a virus. A virus that mutates. In order to survive, it latches on to whatever is considered virtuous at that time and in that place. So, if you’re in medieval Christian Europe, where Christianity is the dominant ideology, you say: “The Jews killed Christ — let’s beat them, kill them, burn them.” In 19th-century Europe, as society becomes more secular, more “enlightened,” the narrative shifts: “The Jews are a clan. They’re not truly integrating into the French nation, or the German people. They’re too communal.” Then, as nationalism rises toward the end of the 19th century, the message changes again: “The Jews have no nation. They’re rootless cosmopolitans. They’re too universalist.” So the Jews create Israel. Now they do have a nation — Zionism. And suddenly the narrative is: “Now they’re too nationalist.”
The pattern is clear: those who hate Jews are always looking for a new reason. And in the past half-century — to return to your question — if you want to mobilize hate, you do it under the banners that are considered sacred in the West today: human rights and anti-racism. So Israel becomes the ultimate villain: The violator of human rights. A war criminal. And — most significantly — an apartheid state. That label is key.
It’s important to understand that October 7th didn’t appear in a vacuum. There was a deliberate, steady deterioration. Those who hated Israel kept pushing — and then came the “apartheid smear”: the campaign to accuse Israel of being the only country in the world that is an apartheid state. Amnesty International released a 200-page report. Human Rights Watch released a 300-page one. One after the other. Now, creating a report like that — for a major international NGO — involves many stakeholders. It takes time. People push back. So the fact that they came out within months of each other? That was no coincidence. It was orchestrated. And I don’t usually say that lightly — I’m not quick to claim things are orchestrated. But in this case, clearly, they were.
Amnesty’s secretary general, Agnes Callamard, and their Middle East director, Philip Luther, traveled to Jerusalem a few years ago to present the apartheid report. A journalist from The Times of Israel, Lazar Berman, asked them: “This is your first report accusing a country of apartheid. Why start with Israel?” And they said, “Well, you know, we have to start somewhere.” He followed up: “In China, there are a million Muslim Uyghurs in camps. Did you consider calling that apartheid?” They said, “Interesting question… but no, we had to begin somewhere.” It was telling. They were clearly focused on Israel.
And as a Jew in this field, I began to shudder. Because I knew what they were doing. They were putting a red X on my forehead — and on any Jew who identifies with Israel.
Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people. It’s not some fringe issue. It’s woven into Judaism itself.
Some far-left Jews say, “I’m Jewish, but I don’t care about Israel.” Then, respectfully, I’d say — you don’t understand Judaism. Three times a day, Jews pray to return to Zion. A third of the prayer book is about Israel and Jerusalem. At every Jewish wedding, there’s a moment after the blessings and the wine, when the couple sings: “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my tongue cleave to my palette. Let I suffer should I ever forget Jerusalem.” And then they break a glass — to remember the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem 2,000-years ago. Israel is central to Jewish faith—
Flávio Barretto: even before Islam existed.
Hillel Neuer: —Islam began in the 7th century. King David ruled in ancient Israel 3,000 years ago.
So, when Amnesty International and others target Israel, they know exactly what they’re doing. It’s not just a country. It’s a stand-in for the Jewish people. Those who once said “I hate Jews because of X” now say: “I don’t hate people. I hate the country.” But they label that country as apartheid, evil, criminal. When I saw them use that term — apartheid — I understood: this was next-level demonization.
And what comes after apartheid? Genocide. But to make that claim, they needed something tangible — even a sliver of truth, or something that could be twisted into truth. They needed dead bodies. And they were waiting.
Francesca Albanese wrote before October 7th that her next UN report may deal with genocide — and that she believes the creation of Israel in 1948 was the start of that genocide. So it was already on their radar.
Then October 7th happened. Hamas killed 1,200 people in one day. Israel began to respond. And Hamas — by design — hides its tunnels under homes, hospitals, schools. So Israel strikes back. Hamas wants civilians to die — it’s part of their strategy. Then we see 100 civilians, 1,000 civilians killed. But who are they? Civilians? Combatants? Hamas wouldn’t tell you. But the images are out there. The world sees the bodies, and the narrative writes itself.
Flávio Barretto: And that’s the final point I’ll make here: One of the key principles of the Geneva Conventions is the distinction between civilians and combatants. A country at war is obligated to separate its military forces from its civilian population. But Hamas doesn’t do that. Except when they film propaganda videos — then they have soldiers dress up in uniforms to send a message to the world.
Hillel Neuer: Yes, you’re quite right. The essence of the Geneva Conventions is to distinguish between combatants — the fighters, the soldiers — and civilians. Civilians are not to be targeted. Of course, civilians will always be harmed in a war, especially when the battle is close to civilian areas. And that’s exactly what Hamas does. Hamas doesn’t just violate the Geneva Conventions — they trample them. They have complete contempt for them.
The entire modus operandi of Hamas is to deliberately attack Israel and fire rockets from civilian areas, hiding their terrorist infrastructure beneath civilian homes, hospitals, and schools. This is done intentionally to provoke a response from Israel, to incur casualties, and then use those images and numbers in information warfare to tarnish Israel’s reputation and stoke hatred against the country.
Now, even if the numbers might sometimes be inflated, or some of the civilian casualties are exaggerated, Hamas manipulates the figures. They’ll say a 17-year-old child was killed — but what they won’t mention is that the child was carrying a Kalashnikov and firing rockets at Israel. He wasn’t just an innocent child. He was a combatant.
Flávio Barretto: Let me ask you this: Israel follows the Geneva Conventions — they even go above and beyond, like notifying Gazans ahead of time when they’re going to bomb a certain area. Why, then, is there this condoning at the UN of Israel, which follows the Geneva Cobventions, which play a partb of the UN, and no criticism towards the other side which doesn’t seem to follow any of the points in the Geneva Conventions?
Hillel Neuer: It’s honestly astonishing. Israel faces a challenge that few other countries have ever experienced. America, France, and the allies fought ISIS in Al-Fallujah and the Taliban in Afghanistan, where they also faced terrorists embedded in civilian areas. But no one has had to deal with the kind of assault Israel faces — an invasion into their homes, massacres, torture, and then fighting an enemy that is deliberately embedded within civilian populations.
Israel has done better than any other country in this regard. And this isn’t just me saying it. Colonel Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, wrote an article for The Times of London in which he said: “I visited Israel, I saw how they conducted the war. No one could have conducted a war to minimize civilian casualties as effectively as Israel has. Yes, many civilians were tragically killed, but that was because Israel’s mission was to destroy Hamas in order to protect its own citizens. Hamas deliberately embedded itself within the civilian population, making it almost impossible to avoid civilian casualties.”
The numbers we’re seeing, the best estimates, suggest around one Hamas combatant killed for every 1.5 civilian deaths — that’s the best estimate. In other wars, like Iraq, the ratio could be as bad as one combatant to six or seven civilians killed.
So, as you said, the United Nations should have recognized this. They should have said, “This is a horrible war, but we commend Israel for the way it’s trying to minimize civilian harm.” Every military unit in Israel has lawyers who vet every target. They have a complex system for targeting, and while it’s not perfect, they’re genuinely trying to minimize harm to civilians. But instead of commending Israel, the UN does the opposite.
Flávio Barretto: Now, if Hamas had followed the Geneva Conventions, how different do you think this conflict would be?
Hillel Neuer: It would be completely different.
First of all, it would be much easier to defeat Hamas. When Israel fought Egypt in 1973, the Egyptians invaded the Sinai Peninsula. They had uniforms, tanks, and a clear battlefront in the desert. You knew where the enemy was, and you fought them there. Had Hamas fought like that — had they dressed in uniforms, fought in open fields — Israel would have had a much easier time. They wouldn’t have needed to harm civilians. But that would undermine Hamas’s cynical, nihilistic strategy, which relies on using civilian deaths to fuel global outrage.
We still don’t know the full death toll, but estimates range between 20,000 to 30,000. Those deaths help fuel protests and anti-Israel sentiment worldwide — from Columbia University to Geneva, to Latin America. To feed the mob’s rage, you need blood, and Hamas gives them that blood. But that’s exactly what Hamas wants. They don’t follow the Geneva Conventions because it would undermine their strategy.
Flávio Barretto: So they [Hamas] don’t follow the Geneva Conventions because it would make them less effective in achieving their goals — bit it still beggs the question, why is it that the UN is so condescending with them not following then Geneva Conventions and criticizing Israel as if they were?
Hillel Neuer: Why are things so upside down at the UN?
Flávio Barretto: Yeah. I want to switch to the United States and the protests that were taking place at universities. Right now, you have Donald Trump, and ICE has begun to revoke the visas of foreign students who are participating in these protests. What’s your take on that?
Hillel Neuer: Well, each case has to be examined, and individuals who are detained deserve due process.
I trust that the U.S. courts — I’m a lawyer in New York — will follow the letter of the law and ensure that the government does so. But one has to understand what has been going on in the past couple of years. It’s a reality that no one should accept. The campuses, not just in the United States but also in Canada, where I grew up, have been taken over by mobs of openly pro-Hamas supporters of terrorism, dressed in keffiyehs, telling students, “Are you Zionist? If you’re Zionist—” which every proud Jew has a minimum of, it’s like asking, “Are you pro-Brazil?” There’s a handful of people who might say, “No, I hate Brazil because I hate Bolsonaro,” or something like that. But the average person is proud to be Canadian, proud to be Brazilian. The average Jew is proud to be a Zionist. This just means you believe Jews should have a right to their homeland.
So, they were saying, basically, “Jews can’t come here.” Various places on campus were taken over, and they would say, “No Zionists can come here.” This is basically imposing apartheid. At McGill University in Montreal, at Columbia University, and many other campuses, they were doing these things and openly supporting Hamas as they massacred families, children, and raped people. And this wasn’t for a day, not for a week, but for a year and a half — taking over large parts of the campus. It’s unbelievable.
And the notion that we should accept this in the United States, while American hostages are still there, where Hirsch Goldberg Polin, an American, is being tortured in the dungeons of Gaza, and someone on a visa, not even a citizen, should be invited to come to Columbia University and be a leader of these pro-Hamas protests, is just absurd. No normal country should allow that. Our authorities in the United States and in Canada tolerated it for far too long.
Flávio Barretto: They say these actions — revoking visas — is against free speech.
Hillel Neuer: Well, there are conditions when you apply for a visa, for those who are not citizens. I have friends and family members who have applied for a visa in the United States, and there are conditions, and you’re aware of them. When you sign up for a green card, you promise to tell the truth and do different things. Had Mahmoud Khalil, I think his name is—of Syrian or Palestinian origin—written, “I’m coming to the United States, and I’m going to be leading protests against the evil American empire at one of the largest universities in America, would I get the visa?” He wouldn’t get it for a minute. “I hope not,” as Secretary Rubio said.
So these people were not telling the truth on their visa applications. The visa can be revoked, and if the authorities can do something legal to send a message that radical terrorism supporters — supporters of rape, torture, and the slaughter of Jews — are absolutely not welcome, that message needs to be sent. For a year and a half, it was not sent — not by the mayor of Montreal, not by the mayor of Toronto, not by many of the police forces in the United States, not by the universities, not by Columbia, not by Harvard, not by McGill. In Montreal, they were coddling terrorism supporters, and it was shocking.
I think someone needs to step up and say, “No, this is not welcome.” And again, America has very broad freedom of speech requirements, but if there’s strong evidence, and if it can be done legally, I would kick them out. We don’t need terrorism supporters in our country. We have every right to remove a terrorism supporter at our discretion. Again, do it with due process of law, make sure you have the right person, but if they’re supporting terrorism, and they’re not a citizen, you don’t need them in your country. Go do it in Syria.
Flávio Barretto: When you’re applying for a visa, you’re asked a question like, “Are you affiliated with a terrorist organization?” And this affiliation may be taken as a broad context or definition. A person can say he is not formally affiliated with a terrorist organization and that he’s just exerting his freedom of speech — he’s just speaking his mind and not formally affiliated with a terrorist organization while participating in the protest. What’s your legal take on this, and on this nuance?
Hillel Neuer: Yeah, well, you know, I’m not familiar with the particular provision that we’re talking about. Normally, if you say “affiliated with a terrorist group,” my understanding is they’re talking about some kind of a more concrete nexus, beyond just saying positions that are similar. They’re saying that you actually belonged to a group that either was Hamas or the Jihad, or a group that is a splinter group that’s affiliated with it, based on the scenario that you gave. And I don’t think that speaking itself makes you affiliated with a group. But again, if you’re a non-citizen, and you’re in my country as a guest, and you are speaking out against the enemy who is torturing Americans and supporting the most evil things, and we can revoke your invitation, I would do it.
Flávio Barretto: And it begs the question, why are these individuals in a country they despise?
Hillel Neuer: And, you know, just to come back… those who are defending them, if it were a different scenario, if it was some kind of white supremacist who came from Europe and started spouting horrible things about blacks, gays, women, and what have you… not a single one of these people speaking out today would speak out. They would say, “Get this hater out of here.” And we see it on campus.
Those claiming freedom of speech — the Ivy League universities were the worst places in the world for freedom of speech. This thing called “microaggression—” if you wouldn’t use the right pronoun, if you said “he” for someone who you thought was male, but it turns out they call themselves “they,” you could be condemned for all kinds of things. And the big universities, like Harvard, were punishing faculty who somehow, in a speech or lecture, used a wrong word that wasn’t woke and politically correct. They had zero respect for freedom of speech, and suddenly, these people start shouting “freedom of speech” when it’s to defend supporters of Hamas terrorism.
Again, it’s true — the United States has the First Amendment. It’s one of the most expansive constitutional provisions in the world for freedom of speech, but there are limits. Supporting Hamas terrorism when you’re a non-citizen on a visa, and you lied on the visa — if you can kick that person out and send a message to all the terrorism supporters who are bullying, intimidating, harassing Jews… Jews in New York City, and on one of the campuses, had to flee for their safety to a library, and then there were mobs banging on the glass doors searching for blood. This has been going on for a year and a half. And if the administration is saying, “You know what, we’re gonna defend Jewish people,” I think that’s welcome.
Flávio Barretto: Yeah, you spoke about woke ideology, and there was a rise in woke ideology over the past decades. There were some incidents, like Evergreen College in the United States, where Professor Brett Weinstein was ostracized because he
Hillel Neuer: —came to school when you weren’t supposed to come to school
Flávio Barretto: —because there was a day for only black students to be in university
Hillel Neuer: —Its called racism.
Flávio Barretto: Yeah. Now, people who support this ideology say, “No, no racism from blacks against whites, because blacks…” — our differential and all that — exactly. And do you think Donald Trump will put an end to this ideology, the woke ideology?
Hillel Neuer: I think a lot of people did vote for him because of that.
You know, the idea that you had biological men with male genitalia showing up in women’s locker rooms is outrageous and a serious threat to women. It’s happening in prisons in the UK, in other countries, where someone said, “I identify as a female,” and the person was a biological male. The judge said, “Okay, you get to go to a women’s prison.” And then they attacked women, whether it was a female guard or female prisoners. People who claim to be woke were actually putting women at risk.
So, I think a lot of the voters for Donald Trump were thinking of things like that, and where the woke ideology became absurd — it was sort of madness. A madness took over America.
Now, Donald Trump has his own temptations for extremes. And, you know, saying “I’m invading Canada, I’m going to take over Canada, take over Greenland.” These are just, you know, some examples. There’s a lot happening, and I think one should be concerned that the pendulum could swing the other way. He sometimes speaks in a way that suggests there is no rule of law, and he could do whatever he wants, like run for a third term. That’s not helpful, and we don’t want to replace woke left with woke right.
I think many Americans wanted normalcy. That’s why people chose Biden — we were told he was the candidate of normalcy. But in fact, when he was there, a lot of the radical left ideology was still being pushed in various ways. So, I think normalcy would be good.
Donald Trump is, of course, unpredictable, and he’s not going to give us quite stability, but some of the excesses that could come from the MAGA movement should be kept in check. There are dangers there too.
Flávio Barretto: Yeah. Now switching to the Ukraine war, you’ve expressed concerns about Donald Trump’s position towards — or relationship — with Putin. How would you rate his mediation of the conflict?
Hillel Neuer: You know, my default is that I’m very upset with the language that has come out of the Trump administration about Putin. Part of my work is defending victims of Vladimir Putin — people who’ve been in prison from his repression — and to see President Trump, or his envoy, Steve Witkoff, or others saying positive things about Russia is offensive to me.
Now, they say, and some defenders say, “Yes, well, he’s mediating, and when you mediate, you need to say nice things about each side.” Well, maybe, but there’s a limit to what you need to say, and it seems that he’s gone past that limit.
Flávio Barretto: And what do you think is the path going forward? You had that incident with Zelensky at the White House, and now they’re back in negotiations. What do you think is the path going forward?
Hillel Neuer: That remains to be seen. Certainly, Europe and other Western countries are supporting Zelensky strongly, but America is irreplaceable. So, without American support, it’s going to be hard for Ukraine to stand strong and continue the war. The war is horrific. You have thousands dying on each side, and I think every decent person does want the war to come to an end. That’s what Trump says, and his administration, his defenders, said they want the war to end. If that’s true, that’s noble.
But we should not rush to give up our ability to speak the truth and to say that what Vladimir Putin did was naked aggression in 2022 — that he is responsible for this war. I hope that America will not abandon the people of Ukraine.
Flávio Barretto: But there’s — I think there’s a similar parallel with the beginning of the UN. You have Putin, who was the first aggressor, and he’s taken up territories in Ukraine, but it doesn’t seem reasonable to think that he would be willing to go back to where they were three years ago, before this conflict, much less to 2014, before he invaded Crimea.
Hillel Neuer: And what’s the parallel you see with the UN?
Flávio Barretto: Because you’re going to have to make some compromises dealing with people who cross red lines and start aggressions, and you’ve got to make peace.
Hillel Neuer: I mean, I said with the pragmatism that the UN involved America and others saying, “Okay, Stalin gets a seat at the table. He gets a veto, and we do business with him because we don’t have a choice. We have to be pragmatic.” Yeah, you’re saying so too, today, Vladimir Putin is there. He’s in Ukraine. He’s not giving it up easily. Strike the best peace you can, right? That’s the argument.
Flávio Barretto: So you think it’s reasonable to expect that some of the territory is not going to be given back to Ukraine?
Hillel Neuer: Yeah, look, I don’t want to speculate under international law. Of course, Vladimir Putin invaded Ukrainian sovereign territory. Ukrainians had nuclear weapons that they inherited from the Soviet Union. They were told, “Give them up, and you will be protected by the West.” And that did not happen. So Ukraine’s case is strong, and I wouldn’t want to announce any kind of non-support for their sovereignty.
Flávio Barretto: What will happen in the end? You know, assuming that both sides are willing to negotiate, it will be a negotiation, and each side will push to get the best that they can. And is it realistic today that Vladimir Putin will give up territory that he controls?
Hillel Neuer: No, he’s going to fight till the end not to give it up. And it’ll be up to the Ukrainians to decide what price they’re willing to pay to get an agreement. And again, the big question is, is the agreement worth anything? How is it going to be verified? If Putin signs something and then he invades again six months later, a year later, what happens? What are the mechanisms? It remains to be seen.
Flávio Barretto: Do you think that incident in the Oval Office had a silver lining to it? Because European nations started raising their budgets for military, and they’ve also realized the importance of not being overly dependent on Russia’s energy. Do you think that incident — I don’t believe I remember anything like that — two heads of state having an argument in front of global media about a conflict with the adversary, the opponent, watching that on cable TV. But do you think there was a silver lining to it?
Hillel Neuer: Potentially. I mean, the fact about the gas. Europe woke up about the gas when Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022. On that, they sort of woke up already. But certainly what you said about the military developing their own industry and so forth, that may indeed be a silver lining. I would agree with you. I hope that the EU countries, European countries, do put more money into defense.
Donald Trump is right in that they were happy to have America, you know, rely on America for their defense and use their money for social welfare and—
Flávio Barretto: also the energy, right? Russia is supplying energy to many European countries, and it’s been clear at this point that Donald Trump had fair criticisms, right?
Hillel Neuer: Yeah, he’s called them out on it. Back in his first term, he called them out on it. Yeah, on that, he was — and — look, my fear is — so I agree with you: I think it could be a silver lining that Western European countries will wake up and invest more in defense, and that’s an important thing. My concern is that there may not be a concept called “the Free World” anymore, and that’s something that was a very big part of how we saw ourselves, which I think was real, that there was this notion of a Free World. And Donald Trump’s distaste for any alliances. It concerns me. It concerns me.
You know, you want to negotiate with Canada, fine, but Canada is a very important alliance for America. As a Canadian, certainly, we cherish the alliance with America. Canada fought in all the world wars and lost a lot of people, fighting against the Germans, the Nazis, Afghanistan, the Taliban. These are meaningful alliances. When something happens, God forbid, if America ever gets attacked, like they did on 9/11, or someone else — you do want those alliances. So, I hope that we won’t see the end of the alliance of the Free World.
Flávio Barretto: And do you think a potential alliance between Russia and China could play a big role in the demise of the Free World, as you say?
Hillel Neuer: Yes, and some argue that maybe Trump is cleverly trying to pull Russia away from China, away from Iran, and that there’s a whole strategy behind it. We’ll have to see.
Flávio Barretto: Yeah, another campaign that is going on in UN Watch is to replace UNRWA. Could you elaborate on that?
Hillel Neuer: Yes, it’s a long time…
Flávio Barretto: Explain to our public what UNRWA is, what its original goals were, and what happened to it that you now have a campaign going.
Hillel Neuer: UNRWA is the UN agency for Palestinians. It was created around 1949, meant to be an agency that would help give Palestinians food, medical treatment, housing—those who were displaced during the War of 1948, Israel’s independence war. When five Arab states invaded Israel, declaring that they would do a jihad and push the Jews into the sea, the Arabs of Palestine joined them in this battle and cooperated with the various invading armies. They lost the war. They managed to kill 6,000 Israelis, which was 1% of the population, a very significant percentage.
The Arabs who were displaced in nearby areas as a result of the war, UNRWA was created, the UN Relief and Works Agency, to help them redevelop and resettle. It had a noble goal. But several years into its operation, the Arabs said, “We don’t want to accept that the war is over. If I say I accept that, I’m now resettled in Lebanon or in Jordan, and I’m giving up the war against the Jewish state, and this I don’t want to do.”
So, UNRWA, at that point, starting in the 1950s, became pathological. The UN agency that was supposed to help Palestinians, after 70 years, hasn’t resettled one. Hasn’t resettled one. The opposite—they tell Palestinians, even if they’ve become citizens in Jordan—2 million Palestinians are Jordanian citizens— for 70 years, they tell them, “You’re still a refugee.”
What does that mean? My family escaped Russia 120 years ago, in 1904, and came to Canada. They were refugees from Russia. We’ve been Canadians in my family for 120 years. I’m not a Russian refugee. It’s over. We’re Canadians. Only at the UN with UNRWA, do 2 million Jordanians with Jordanian passports and citizenship have the status of a refugee. UNRWA tells them, “You’re going to go home to Israel.” You’re going to right—right of return, which is the nice euphemism. It’s a way of saying you have the right to dismantle Israel.
And so the Arabs who invaded from Gaza, the Hamas terrorists, the civilians who came with them, were educated in UNRWA schools, where they were taught, “You have the right to enter Israel, to dismantle Israel, the right of return, and that your home isn’t here in Gaza, even if Gaza is beautiful, even if Gaza has white sands, and much of it is right on the beach, and even if you’ve been living here for 70 years, your home is there: Tel Aviv, Haifa.” That’s the pathology of UNRWA.
Flávio Barretto: And what do you want to replace it with?
Hillel Neuer: Palestinian autonomy, in the sense that Palestinians are not in perpetual need of a UN handout. There is this thing in the world where somehow there’s almost a desire to always have a poor Palestinian who’s sitting there and saying, “Give us money. I’m the poor Palestinian.” You know, it’s very useful to have that image—the poor Palestinian—because it means someone is oppressing him, and that’s Israel. So, it seems that there are some in the West who want the image and the phenomenon of a Palestinian refugee, a suffering Palestinian. They want the suffering Palestinian.
But what if Palestinians in Gaza had no replacement to UNRWA? UNRWA left, and what would they do? Govern themselves? But how can Palestinians do anything? Well, we saw for the past 10, 20 years, they built hundreds of kilometers of terror tunnels. Very sophisticated terror tunnels. They built a war strategy. They surprised the IDF, the great army in the region, surprised them, invaded Israel, managed to massacre a lot of people, take hostages. They did a lot. So, they’re actually very capable people, and they have agency.
If they want to have schools, and if they want to collect taxes and give out bags of flour, they can do so themselves. But the UN and the international community seem to want to have them in a state of dependency. It seems to want to have them as refugees, a kind of weapon against Israel, because they’re going to undermine Israel. They’re going to go from Gaza into Israel.
So, what replaces UNRWA? Ideally, it should be Palestinians ruling themselves. In the short term, there’s a war going on. You may need UNICEF. You may need the World Food Program, UNDP. There are any number of programs all over the world that help refugees, people who need food—they can easily go into tiny Gaza for 2 million people and help them. So, short term, bring in other agencies. Long term, get rid of this dependency, which only perpetuates war and aggression.
Flávio Barretto: Yeah. Well, Hillel, before we end, you travel a lot—you’re at UN Watch. I’d like to have your take on Brazil. How do you and in Canada, in Switzerland, in Israel, what is the world’s view on Brazil’s political scenario today?
Hillel Neuer: It’s a good question. I don’t think it comes up that much, to be honest. It hasn’t been on the world’s radar the way that Turkey is now coming on the radar because Erdogan is arresting his opponents and everything, but certainly, Lula— for those who care about democracy, the rule of law, and, you know, antisemitism—are concerned about Lula and certain tendencies. His statement comparing Israel to Nazis was a horrific one. People saw that. I think the fear is that Brazil might have a kind of sympathy for some of the dictatorships, like Maduro. Yes, he kind of criticized them, but not very much. I think that bothers some people.
Otherwise, I don’t think Brazil is preoccupying the world news, but it’s obviously a very important country, and I wish that their votes at the United Nations would change. Under Bolsonaro, the votes were better on a range of issues, including resolutions attacking Israel. Lula’s government just voted yes for a sort of pro-Hamas resolution adopted by a large majority, and that’s unfortunate. I hope that changes.
Flávio Barretto: And as a lawyer, how do you see this move that has been taking place in France and the US? Donald Trump has been denouncing it—the judicial system moving into politics. How do you see that?
Hillel Neuer: Well, do you mean sort of the weaponization of courts to target political leaders, whether it’s Trump or maybe the other side, that sort of thing?
Flávio Barretto: Yeah.
Hillel Neuer: So, I think it’s unfortunate that America is now at that stage. There are other countries, maybe you had it here in Brazil, where it’s common for the person who was president to go after him, convict him, maybe get some prison time, and then he can’t run again, right? You’ve had a bit of that here, back and forth.
In many countries, we didn’t have it. I don’t think you ever had it in the UK—
Flávio Barretto: Romania as well—where they do have it—yeah.
Hillel Neuer: Yeah, okay. Well, I’m talking about the more major established democracies. We did not have it. Canada, we did not have it. The United States, you did not have it. You had people who hated George W. Bush, but no one was trying to put him in prison after he was in office—as far as I know, no significant attempt. But with Trump, there were many attempts. I don’t know, dozens or whatever it was, but there was a sense—by I think, some reasonable people, not just Trump supporters—that some of the judicial system—sometimes you have political prosecutors who are appointed by the Democratic Party—were going after Trump, maybe with some political motivations. That’s unfortunate.
And then Trump is kind of open about wanting to get revenge in different ways, and that’s not good for the system. If you have that pendulum, where there’s a sense that it’s all politics and not law, we’d like to have an independent judiciary. It’s a very important institution for every society—it must be credible and seen as impartial. So I hope that the large Western democracies don’t fall into that trap. You know, again, no one’s immune. And if there’s a president who did horrible things of a certain level, I think they should be held to account. But finding things like—he gave money to a woman he had an affair with, and that was a campaign-related thing that was never used before and isn’t really a major crime in the law of America—to suddenly go after a president for that, that seemed to many to be politically motivated, and that’s unfortunate.
Flávio Barretto: Well, Hillel, it was a pleasure to have you here. We hope to have you back again soon. Again, we invite you to watch our documentary about the Israel-Gaza War, “From the River to the Sea,” and maybe if you do, we can have another conversation like this one. I’d love to hear your takes on our documentary.
Hillel Neuer: Great. I will look forward to seeing it, and thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
