Hillel Neuer was interviewed by India Today’s Geeta Mohan to discuss the serious allegations facing UNRWA.
India Today: This is an India Today exclusive. I’m being joined by Hillel Neuer, who is the Executive Director of UN Watch and testified before the US Foreign Relations Committee with regards to the UNRWA exposé and their involvement with terrorists, or Hamas, in the October 7th deadly terrorist attacks. Thanks so much, Hillel, for joining us here on India Today. Let’s begin with the Foreign Relations Committee where you testified. What’s the situation on the ground that you explained to them? And how has this entire incident impacted and affected the credibility of UNRWA itself?
Hillel Neuer: Well, UNRWA has very little credibility, because for 10 years, we’ve been submitting to them warnings that their employees, including teachers, and school principals are inciting to jihadi terrorism, calling to slaughter Jews, and glorifying Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. And their response was not only to ignore us, to ignore the reports, to fail to take any action, but to attack us, to say that UN Watch is not credible, and so forth. So for 10 years, they’ve been ignoring our warnings, and for them to suddenly announce now that they fired 10 people or something, and they’re investigating, that’s too little and too late. The agency is infested with terrorism, an estimated 1,200 staff in Gaza alone are members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations. That is the situation with UNRWA today.
India Today: Now this expose, the intelligence gathering with regards to UNRWA, exposes certain staff members of UNRWA being involved with Hamas or with the terrorist incident. But in the larger picture, we hear about the humanitarian aid that is to reach Gaza. What really happens to that now and how is it impacting aid, humanitarian aid reaching civilians in Gaza?
Hillel Neuer: Well, we need to find a practical replacement becuase UNRWA is a failure. The international community should not be paying taxes to an agency that has 1,200 terrorists working there, 6,000 family members of terrorists, and actual perpetrators of the massacre of October 7th on its staff. So that’s clear, and we just need to find a replacement. There was a question asked at the United Nations last week in Geneva, and the spokesman from the World Health Organization said, “The United Nations in general, and the WHO are capable of scaling up to replace UNRWA if they are defunded, so we are working at finding alternatives. There’s the UN Refugee Agency, which is for the whole world, UNHCR. They can handle the situation. They’re very capable of doing so. We don’t need UNRWA, a special agency, that has the opposite purpose: not to resettle refugees, but to perpetuate Palestinians, in generation after generation, of grievance, hatred, and war. That needs to end. We have replacements: the World Food Program, OCHA, the UN humanitarian agency UNDP, the development program, UNHCR, the refugee agency, all of these are very capable of filling in the space and distributing aid as much as needed.
India Today: Right, but Hillel, UNRWA works under the United Nations, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in a recent statement, has asked those countries that have halted their funding for UNRWA to not do that and continue their aid operation to ensure that humanitarian aid really reaches those Palestinian refugees. What’s your reaction and your take on that?
Hillel Neuer: Well, my concern is that the Secretary-General has failed to act. We sent him warnings numerous times, we’ve requested to meet with the heads of UNRWA and with him to discuss incitement to terrorism, the problem that is widespread and systematic throughout the agency. He failed to meet, he failed to act. His spokesman, a few weeks ago said, “ah, UN Watch,” referring to me, my organization: “They have a track record.” So they tried to disparage us. The evidence is on our website, unwatch.org, ‘the case against UNRWA.’ You’ll see our latest report, ‘UNRWA’s Terrorgram,’ documenting 3,000 UNRWA teachers in a chat group that incited to murder and celebrated the horrific acts of October 7th. Secretary General Guterres has failed to take action. It’s all too little too late. He’s trying to make the problem go away. This so-called inquiry that he created is a fake inquiry. It will not uncover the truth, which is that terrorism is widespread and systematic within UNRWA.
India Today: And did UN Watch, ahead of the October 7th attacks, warn the world body, the United Nations, of such involvement of staff members and UNRWA with certain elements within Hamas that were planning attacks in the past as well?
Hillel Neuer: We have documented over the years, certainly widespread incitement to jihadi terrorism, meaning teachers like Elham Mansour of UNRWA in Lebanon, saying, “By Allah you need to slaughter all the Israelis and the Jews and the Zionists and whoever doesn’t do so is breaching their obligations to Allah.” So we had open calls to slaughter Jews. We have Riad Nimer, a teacher at UNRWA who celebrated the massacre of Jewish worshipers in a synagogue in Jerusalem in 2014. There are many other instances documented in reports that we sent: in 2015, three different reports. in 2017, in 2019, in 2021, in March 2023, in November 2023, and then finally in January, just a week ago, I presented to the United States Congress a report on “UNRWA’s Terrorgram.” Each of these reports consisted of a warning to the UN, that terrorism support was widespread. In addition, we know and it emerged that UNRWA has allowed rockets to be launched from their facilities and weapons to be concealed. That is documented from the 2014 War. And finally, I would say there are UNRWA people in the years past, who were part of the Hamas Political Bureau. One’s name was Suhail al-Hindi, if I’m not mistaken, and UNRWA removed him. So incitement, they knew about it. Involvement of some of their staff in Hamas, they knew about it. Their facilities were being used to launch rockets at Israeli civilians, each rocket being a war crime, and UNRWA knew about this. They can’t, today, pretend they didn’t know. Again, we reached out to them, and sent letters to Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini, and his predecessor Pierre Krahenbuhl, but they refused to meet us. They didn’t want to know about it. That’s the truth. UNRWA buried their heads in the sand. They cannot say they didn’t know, they knew.
India Today: You testified before the Foreign Relations Committee, what really happened there?
Hillel Neuer: Well, the Committee of the US Congress called for a hearing to expose UNRWA and the failures of its mission. We were there as one of the key witnesses to provide evidence. And the members of Congress, I can tell you, certainly from the chairman’s side, the Republicans, but also some Democrats like Brad Schneider, Ritchie Torres, are outraged that more than $300 million of US taxpayer money is going to fund supporters of terrorism if not perpetrators of terrorism themselves. So the American people, I think, have had enough of this. And I think certainly the Congress is going to push the administration to cut off all the funding, not just temporarily, but for good.
India Today: But, civilians within Gaza are being impacted, being affected. Now, with this entire situation on the ground, what is the next step to ensure humanitarian aid reaches the people of Gaza if not UNRWA? As you said, there are other options. But, what is it that UN Watch is looking at in terms of options to ensure that aid reaches civilians in Gaza?
Hillel Neuer: To begin to transition, the transition has to begin soon. It’s not gonna happen one day to the next. We have to make sure that humanitarian needs come first, but not politics, not the politics of war, the politics of revenge, the politics of hatred, incitement to terrorism. That needs to end, and UNRWA is tainted, and cannot be reformed. We’ve tried, it is not reformable. We need to begin the transition. World Food Program, UN Development Program, UNHCR, Office of Humanitarian Affairs known as OCHA, all of them can do it. We’re beginning discussions to begin the process of transition.
India Today: Right. Hillel, also, are there steps, or next course of action, that UN Watch and other international organizations are really looking at and considering to ensure that in the future, aid agencies that are working in such zones, particularly such as Gaza, that they’re not involved with elements that are extremist, terror organizations, and that there is some sort of installation to ensure that the credibility is not lost, and humanitarian aid continues.
Hillel Neuer: Well, it’s very hard to enforce this because Hamas is a mafia, a terrorist mafia organization, and anything in Gaza will be under their control. So every second home had, underneath children’s beds, grenades, weapons, and RPGs. So every home was subverted. You can assume every facility, every school, every clinic, will be subverted by Hamas. That is a challenge that is not going to go away if Hamas is in control. We have to hope that Hamas will be destroyed. They are a murderous, genocidal, nihilistic terrorist organization. We pray that they will be destroyed and that they will no longer be able to subvert UN agencies.
India Today: Zooming out a little to the larger picture over here Hillel. At the end of the day, where and how does UN Watch really look at a solution to this entire conflict, to this entire crisis? Is a two-state solution the way forward?
Hillel Neuer: Well look, the problem with UNRWA is that the international community said there must be a Palestinian state. Okay. We tried to figure that out in Gaza, but Israel withdrew completely. They had control of it, they turned it into a terrorist state. In the West Bank, Israel pulled out of all the main cities, Ramallah, Jenin, Hebron, Nablus, and so forth. Terrorists are also entering there, those connected to Fatah, known as the lion’s den in Jenin. But UNRWA says that it’s not enough. You have to give us Israel as well, the Palestinians from 75 years ago, are all going to return. You know, in India, in South Asia, you had an exchange of population, and no one is saying, 75 years later, everyone is going to start upending countries and have people going back and forth. So this notion is absurd. The way that we will get peace is for the Palestinians to recognize that there is legitimacy for a Jewish state right now. They think it is not legitimate.
India Today: There is a hostage crisis. There’s also a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. How then can organizations, the international community, really look at bringing about peace? Can there be peace? Can there be some sort of normalcy in, or between Israel and Palestine?
Hillel Neuer: Peace can come and it will come when there is recognition by the Palestinians that it is legitimate for Jews to have a state in their ancient ancestral homeland. The United Arab Emirates recognizes there’s peace. Egypt and Jordan, there are peace agreements. Same with Bahrain and Morocco. So Arab states, who have recognized the legitimacy of a Jewish state, have full peace agreements. The Palestinians refuse to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state anywhere. Until that happens, sadly, we will not see peace.
India Today: Hillel Neuer, thank you so much for joining us here on India today.
Hillel Neuer: Thank you
