UN Watch was quoted in multiple media outlets during November 2020 on topics including: the U.N. General Assembly passing anti-Israel resolutions and calling the Temple Mount by its Muslim name only; Canada’s shifting U.N. vote away from Israel; the U.N. Human Rights Council reviews the U.S. human rights record; China’s persecution of the Uighurs; Christiane Amanpour comparing Kristallnacht to Trump; the World Health Organization singles out Israel; the U.N. condemns the Iranian extrajudicial killing of a champion wrestler; Mozambique Islamists behead over 50 people.
U.N. General Assembly Passes Anti-Israel Resolutions; Calls Temple Mount by its Muslim Name Only
Quoted in Times of Israel, “UAE, Bahrain, Sudan join huge majority backing anti-Israel moves at UN panel,” Nov. 5, 2020:
UN Watch, a Geneva-based nonprofit monitoring the world body’s alleged anti-Israel bias, released a long statement decrying the resolutions passed Wednesday.
“The UN’s assault on Israel with a torrent of one-sided resolutions is surreal,” said Hillel Neuer, the group’s executive director.
“Just two weeks after the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group assaulted Israeli civilians with a barrage of rockets from Gaza — while the UN’s General Assembly and Human Rights Council stayed silent — the world body now adds insult to injury by adopting seven lopsided resolutions, whose only purpose is to demonize the Jewish state.”
“While France, Germany, Sweden and other EU states are expected to support most of the estimated 20 resolutions to be adopted against Israel by December, the same European nations have failed to introduce a single UNGA resolution on the human rights situation in China, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Turkey, Pakistan, Vietnam, Algeria, or on 175 other countries,” said Neuer.
“Where’s their supposed concern for international law and human rights?”
In a press release, UN Watch argued that countries like Germany and the Netherlands, which supported the resolutions, broke their recent promises to oppose anti-Israel bias at the UN.
“Last year, after 155 German MPs called on the German government to oppose ‘politically motivated initiatives and alliances of anti-Israeli Member States’ in the UN, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas called out UN bias against Israel and committed to oppose ‘any attempt to isolate or delegitimize Israel,’ in UN bodies,” the statement read.
“Likewise, after the Dutch parliament resolved to ‘actively oppose UN organizations that devote disproportional attention to Israel,’ the Dutch foreign minister declared last year that the Netherlands would ‘make an active effort to combat disproportionate attention’ on Israel at the UN. Yet both countries today largely went along with the ritual singling out of the Jewish state, as did most other EU states.”
Quoted in The Algemeiner, “The Assault on Israel at the United Nations,” Nov. 24, 2020:
An apt critique of these resolutions was voiced on the day on which the resolutions were adopted in the UNGA’s Fourth Committee, Nov. 5, 2020, by Hillel Neuer, director of U.N. Watch:
“One of today’s resolutions—drafted and co-sponsored by Syria—falsely condemns Israel for ‘repressive measures’ against Syrian citizens in the Golan Heights,” said Neuer. “This is but the latest act in the U.N.’s theater of the absurd.”
The resolution condemns Israel for holding on to the Golan Heights and demands Israel hand the land and its people to Syria.
“It is astonishing,” said Neuer. “After the Syrian regime has killed half a million of its own people, how can the U.N. call for more people to be handed over to Assad’s rule? The text is morally galling and logically absurd.”
The resolutions presented a “claim to care about Palestinians, yet the U.N. is oblivious to more than 3,000 Palestinians who have been slaughtered, maimed and expelled by Assad’s forces,” he added.
“Today’s farce at the General Assembly underscores a simple fact: the U.N.’s automatic majority has no interest in truly helping Palestinians, nor in protecting anyone’s human rights; the goal of these ritual, one-sided condemnations is to scapegoat Israel. The U.N.’s disproportionate assault against the Jewish state undermines the institutional credibility of what is supposed to be an impartial international body. Politicization and selectivity harm its founding mission, eroding the U.N. Charter’s promise of equal treatment to all nations large and small,” he said.
Quoted in the Jewish Journal, “UN Committee Passes Resolution Downplaying Jewish Connection to Temple Mount,” Nov. 5, 2020:
“The UN today showed contempt for both Judaism and Christianity by passing a resolution that makes no mention of the name Temple Mount, which is Judaism’s holiest site, and which is sacred to all who venerate the Bible, in which the ancient Temple was of central importance,” U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer said in a statement.
Canada’s Shifting U.N. Vote Away from Israel
Quoted in the Toronto Sun, “Under Trudeau, Canada shifts in its stance with Israel,” Nov. 24, 2020:
“It’s a notable departure,” said Hillel Neuer, of UN Watch. Neuer is disappointed in Canada’s position but overall says the Trudeau government has not joined the Israel bashing bloc when it comes to UN votes.
“Justin Trudeau is clearly friendly to Israel, and among world leaders who are centre-left, he leads one of the more friendly governments, but there is a departure,” Neuer said.
U.N. Human Rights Council Reviews U.S. Human Rights Record
Quoted by Fox News, “Pompeo says US critics at UN Human Rights Council ‘have the most to hide’,” Nov. 10, 2020:
U.N. Watch, a Geneva-based watchdog, reported that North Korea, one of the most repressive regimes in the world, expressed concern about “the USA’s human rights violations at home and abroad.”
https://twitter.com/UNWatch/status/1325817180638900232?s=20
Cited in The National Interest, “The Self-Assured Hubris of the World’s Human-Rights Abusers, ” Nov. 15, 2020:
During the discussion, as described on social media by UN Watch, Belarus called on the United States to adhere to international elections standards and allow peaceful assembly. Cuba condemned institutional racism in the United States. North Korea expressed concern about America’s human-rights violations. Turkey expressed concern about rising antisemitism in the United States.
Obviously, hypocrisy dominated the day.
China’s Persecution of the Uighurs
Quoted in the Toronto Sun, “Any UN investigation of China for genocide will be a farce,” Nov. 16, 2020:
As Hillel Neuer, Canadian-born executive director of the Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch recently observed, the latest vote means 60% of the 47 nations that make up the UNHRC are now dictatorships, up from 51%.
Neuer called it “a black day for human rights. Electing these dictatorships as UN judges on human rights is like making a gang of arsonists into the fire brigade.”
China Critiques U.S. Elections
Quoted in Newsweek, “Beijing Says Trump Lost ‘Rust-Belt States’ Because of Trade War, ‘Roaring Nationalism’ Failed,” Nov. 9, 2020:
U.N. Watch executive director Hillel Neuer replied to the Global Times editorial head, tweeting, “you don’t even have elections.”
you don't even have elections https://t.co/ejrCYX6JEB
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) November 3, 2020
Christiane Amanpour Compares Kristallnacht to Trump
Tweet featured in the Jerusalem Post, “Israel demands Amanpour apologize for comparing Kristallnacht and Trump,” Nov. 25, 2020:
Never before in the history of U.S. news networks did a journalist distort the Holocaust for political purposes as Amanpour just did on on CNN & PBS.
No, @camanpour, the Nazi genocide was not “an attack on fact, knowledge, history & truth.“
They murdered 6 million Jews. Say it. pic.twitter.com/Cwkzj1lUBK
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) November 14, 2020
World Health Organization Singles Out Israel
Quoted in YNet News, “WHO meeting devolves into attack on Israel,” Nov. 12, 2020:
According to a UN Watch report, among the 30 delegations who blamed Israel for “allegedly violating the health rights of Palestinians and Syrians in the Golan Heights” – are Venezuela, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba, Malaysia and Lebanon – all of which are embroiled in civil war, political strife or human rights violations.
Quoted in The Algemeiner, “Despite Covid-19 Pandemic, UN’s World Health Organization Spends Four Hours Bashing Israel,” Nov. 12, 2020:
Hillel Neuer — executive director of the Geneva-based NGO UN Watch — called the proceedings a “cynical politicization of the world’s top health agency at the expense of focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic and other vital global health priorities and emergencies.”
Neuer said the charges made against Israel at the session were untrue, pointing out, “Despite the conflict, Israel grants entry to tens of thousands of Palestinians who receive top-level medical care at Israeli hospitals. Even the UN’s own Middle East peace envoy hailed Israel’s ‘excellent’ coordination and cooperation with Palestinians amid the coronavirus pandemic.”
U.N. Condemns Iranian Extrajudicial Killing of Champion Wrestler
Tweet quoted and featured in the Jerusalem Post, “UN condemns Iran’s extrajudicial killing of champion wrestler,” Nov. 19, 2020:
Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, tweeted: “GOOD: Despite opposition by the world’s most murderous regimes, the U.N. just condemned the Islamic Republic of Iran for arbitrary arrest & detention, torture of peaceful protesters & political prisoners–and specifically cited the case of Navid Afkari.”
https://twitter.com/HillelNeuer/status/1329197405892382720?s=20
Mozambique Islamists Behead More Than 50 People
Tweet quoted and featured in The Independent, “Islamists behead more than 50 people as football pitch is turned into killing field,” Nov. 10, 2020:
International lawyer and human rights activists Hillel Neuer also expressed dismay at the incident. “Fleeing villagers were caught, beheaded & chopped to pieces in an atrocity carried out from Friday night to Sunday. The UN Human Rights Council—which spent today criticising the USA—will say & do 0,” Neuer tweeted.
https://twitter.com/HillelNeuer/status/1325926532917972992?s=20
