UN Watch in the News — April 2023

UN Watch was quoted in multiple media outlets during April 2023, including numerous articles covering UN Watch’s joint report on UNRWA teachers’ incitement to antisemitism in UNRWA schools, Russia’s candidacy for the U.N. Human Rights Council, and the upcoming Geneva Summit on Human Rights and Democracy. 

Featured in BILD, “Germany pays for hatred of Jews in Palestinian schools,” April 21, 2023 (English translation):

Many millions of Euros of taxpayers’ money for hate: The EU continues to fund calls for violence and antisemitic incitement.

This is the result of an investigation into Palestinian teaching materials used in schools run by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) during the current school year. In addition, many of the teachers employed there also make openly antisemitic statements, glorify Hitler and cheer the murder of Jews.

The joint UN Watch and Impact-SE investigation reveals the openness with which teachers in UNRWA schools engage in anti-Semitic incitement.

Featured in Newsweek, op-ed by UN Watch’s Director of Research Shany Mor, “Your Tax Dollars Are Being Used to Teach Hate,” April 24, 2023:

Public funds in Western democracies could not be used to pay for teachers calling for violence and terrorism, lauding Nazi leaders, or promoting antisemitism at home. And yet, they are currently being used toward exactly that end in schools run by an agency of the United Nations. Donor countries must demand accountability—or stop paying up.

UNRWA regularly claims that its schools teach Palestinian children about peace, tolerance, and human rights. But as shown by a recent report jointly produced by two monitoring groups, United Nations Watch and IMPACT-se, this is far from the case. UNRWA school materials regularly promote antisemitism, violence, and rejection of Israel. And UNRWA routinely hires as teachers men and women whose social media feeds are full of support for terrorism.

Featured in VOA Korea, “North Korean school dropout to testify on human rights in North Korea at Geneva conference next month,” April 18, 2023:

A North Korean defector who attended only one year of elementary school in North Korea will testify about human rights in the country at an international conference in Switzerland. Now, the defector is speaking out for North Korea’s vulnerable population in fluent English on the international stage, reporter Kim Young-kwon reports.

The Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy has invited a North Korean defector to speak at its 15th meeting in Geneva next month on the 17th.

Quoted in The New York Sun, “Even as Moscow Presses Unjust Ukraine War, It Maneuvers To Regain Human Rights Seat,” April 26, 2023:

Undeterred by several setbacks at the United Nations, Russia is planning to secure a seat next year on the world body’s top human rights organ, several diplomats are telling the Sun.

“Electing Vladimir Putin’s Russia to a world human rights council is like making a pyromaniac into the town fire chief,” UN Watch’s executive director, Hillel Neuer, tells the Sun. “This is a regime that slaughters innocent citizens in neighboring countries, and that poisons its own journalists and dissidents.”

Quoted in The National Post, “As Israel turns 75, the UN won’t be invited to the party,” April 25, 2023:

The circumstances attending to the 75th birthday of the world’s only Jewish state this week are not what you could call auspiciously pleasant. Yom Ha’atzmaut — Independence Day — is commemorated on Wednesday, immediately following Yom HaZikaron — Memorial Day. These are not exactly the best of times for a celebration.

Last year, the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) was busy with 19 agenda items covering issues as diverse as disaster relief, science and technology, and women’s rights. Only one agenda item produced a resolution singling out a single country for criticism. That country was Israel, which the agency blasted last July for standing as a “major obstacle” to the rights of Palestinian women. At the time, Hillel Neuer of UN Watch said ECOSOC had turned a blind eye to the status of women under the patriarchal Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the viciously Islamist Hamas regime in Gaza, choosing instead to praise the Palestinian authorities’ initiatives to advance the status of women.

“ECOSOC’s 2022 session completely ignored the world’s worst abusers of women’s rights,” Neuer said, “refusing to pass a single resolution on the situation of women in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Chad, Qatar or Algeria, which rank among the 10 worst violators of women’s rights in the world.”

Mentioned in The Jerusalem Post, “UN rapporteur, who appeared on Hezbollah-affiliated channel, must resign,” April 23, 2023:

This month, anti-Israel terrorists murdered a mother and her two daughters in one attack, as well as an Italian tourist in a separate attack in Tel Aviv. Instead of condemning these murders, Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on Gaza, the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem became embroiled in controversy after suggesting that Israel doesn’t have the right to self-defense against Palestinian terrorists.

According to UN Watch, nearly 70% of all condemnatory resolutions in the General Assembly have targeted Israel since 2015 and over 50% of all condemnatory resolutions in the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) have targeted Israel since 2006.