Hillel Neuer appeared on Fox Business with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the ceasefire between Israel and Iran, the weakness and absurdity of the United Nations, and the future ahead.
Maria Bartiromo, Fox Business: President Trump this morning is having a busy day before departing Washington for the NATO Summit in the Netherlands. He wrote this on Truth Social moments ago: “Israel is not going to attack Iran. All planes will turn around and head home while doing a friendly plane wave to Iran. Nobody will be hurt. The ceasefire is in effect.”
The President also reportedly spoke with Benjamin Netanyahu, telling him “don’t attack Iran”. He posted again, saying: “Iran will never rebuild their nuclear facilities.” Joining me now is UN Watch Executive Director, Hillel Neuer. Hillel, good to see you. Thanks for being here. What’s your reaction to all of this?
Hillel Neuer: Look, the latest dispute right now is really just a sideshow. Tehran knows that they lost big. President Trump destroyed their nuclear facilities. Israel pounded them for a week: destroying their military leadership, destroying also large parts of the nuclear facilities, and headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard and the Basij thugs.
So, they’ve gotten an extraordinary, unprecedented hit to the regime. They want to stop. Israel has been taking horrible hits in their cities. Many civilians have been killed. Buildings have been destroyed. Ten thousand people are now homeless. Israel has achieved all of its objectives in the war. Both sides want to step down, so the ceasefire will hold. Who gets the last shot—that’s just a sideshow.
Maria Bartiromo, Fox Business: Well, that’s the thing—I mean, who gets the last hit? And it seems like that’s what Iran is focused on. But the UN Security Council is meeting on Sunday, as Russia and China are condemning the U.S. strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities. They’re calling for an immediate ceasefire as well—before President Trump’s announcement.
And of course, the president on Truth Social talked about the deal that he brokered this morning. He says that both countries have already violated that ceasefire, Hillel. So what I’m trying to get at is: can we trust that this ceasefire can actually sustain? The UN Council is acting like hypocrites.
Hillel Neuer: They are. I mean, let’s talk about the UN—and we should first say a word about Guterres himself. You know, after the U.S. destroyed these evil nuclear weapons facilities, Guterres, the Secretary-General of the UN, condemned the U.S.—said this is a perilous turn—which is absurd. This is someone who’s lost his moral compass, cannot tell right from wrong.
President Trump and the United States helped Israel save humanity. To quote the Canadian opposition leader who said several months ago: “Were Israel to take out Iran’s nuclear weapons program, that would be a gift from the Jewish state to humanity.” So, Guterres doesn’t understand that.
And of course, as you said, we have absurd moral hypocrisy from Russia, China, Pakistan—which is a non-permanent member of the Security Council. These are serial violators of human rights. Moscow, as we speak, is bombing hospitals and cities in Ukraine. China is holding a million Uyghurs in camps. They don’t give a darn about anyone in the Middle East. It’s just about attacking the U.S.
And of course, the UN has shown it’s irrelevant. It’s President Trump himself who’s achieved, basically, the ceasefire—which I expect will take hold within the next day or so.
Maria Bartiromo, Fox Business: So, I mean, the consequences for peace are just staggering. It’s amazing what has taken place here in the last week. Do you expect that we actually could get to a place of peace?
I think it’s really notable that we haven’t heard from any of the proxies—haven’t heard from Hezbollah. The IDF struck Hezbollah military sites in Lebanon yesterday, along with weapons storage facilities. Experts are pointing out Iran’s proxy forces have been massively degraded in the past few years. But even after the U.S. took out those three nuclear sites, you didn’t hear a peep from any of those groups, either.
Hillel Neuer: That’s right. I mean, at the end of the day, if we look at World War II—to give one example—what brought the peace was a devastating victory. Hitler and the Japanese were defeated. And until then, they weren’t going to sue for peace. You know, the U.S. needed to do what it had to do. The Japanese were not going to give up—they were defeated.
The same is true with the fanatical Islamic regime in Iran. The whole raison d’être, the whole goal of this evil regime, is to destroy Israel. “Death to Israel. Death to America.” This is what their entire foundation is about—what they teach their children, what they say every day.
And they were defeated in an extraordinary way—in a war that basically lasted about 12 days. Of course, Iran started this war decades ago, but certainly on October 7th, when their Hamas proxy attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people in one day. The next day, their proxy, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, began firing thousands of missiles. And now it’s ended in a spectacular defeat for Iran.
Yeah, of course the enemies of Israel are not going to give up, but I think the U.S. and Israel are extraordinarily satisfied at the results of this past week and a half.
Maria Bartiromo, Fox Business: Well, The New York Times writing this: “Even as its proxies were being degraded, Iran appeared reluctant to entangle itself in any direct confrontation with Israel to support those groups. The decision cost Iran its credibility.”
Hillel, I mean, that’s from The New York Times, of course. But longer-term—what do you think happens in Iran in terms of the leadership there? Are you expecting Ayatollah Khamenei to eventually step down? I know that he’s already naming two people as successors, and I mean, one publication called them “thugs.”
Hillel Neuer: Look, he’s 86 years old, and he seems to be out of touch. You know, Yahya Sinwar, when he launched the October 7 attack, this is an Iranian proxy. He thought this would lead to the destruction of Israel. And indeed, that’s what Khamenei thought. And they were wrong. They read reality wrong. And now they’ve been humiliated.
They spent a trillion dollars on these nuclear weapons facilities. So if you’re an Iranian hard worker and your taxes are going for something that’s been turned into dust—something that’s destructive—your money is going to the Iranian proxies, which, as you indicated, have basically been silenced. They were not active in this war of the past 10 years or so.
So, I think the Iranian people certainly have the will to overturn this regime. The question is: do they have the capacity? The regime still has the guns, and I’m concerned that they may begin taking revenge and doing a brutal crackdown on innocent people—human rights activists who are in prison. Very concerned about that.
Maria Bartiromo, Fox Business: Yeah, well, I think that’s what they’ve started to do already. And they tried to shut down the internet as well, so people could not get information at all.
Real quick—we’ve got to jump, Hillel—but do you think the U.S.’s leadership in all of this has far further-reaching consequences? Like, to pressure Russia into stopping its assault on Ukraine? To pressure China to stop the consistent undermining of the United States?
Hillel Neuer: Absolutely. You know, the evil regimes in this world—they look at signals. When Obama failed to act on Syria, the next day Putin went into Crimea—that was his first invasion of Ukraine, over a decade ago. And so everyone is looking: are you serious or not?
President Trump showed he is serious: “We build a nuclear weapon—we land on you like a ton of bricks.” That’s a signal sent to Beijing, to Moscow—around the world.
Maria Bartiromo, Fox Business: Hillel, good to talk with you. Thank you so much, Hillel Neuer joining us.
