UN Watch was quoted in multiple media outlets during July 2023, including on anti-Israel bias, the U.N. Human Rights Council, and UN agency funding.
In Metro UK, UN Watch’s Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, “Iran’s Armed Forces Murdered My Mum, It’s Time the UK Called Them Terrorists,” July 3, 2023:
Metro caught up with Alireza Akhondi – an MP in Sweden who successfully campaigned to have his government proscribe the IRGC – during the 15th Summit for Human Rights and Democracy in Geneva.
Featured in The Florida Star, “Hillel Neuer: The Man Challenging UN’s Anti-Israel Bias,” July 24, 2023:
The relationship between Israel and the United Nations has a long and complicated history. In the days of the founding of Israel, the United Nations served as a great platform for Zionism to obtain wide recognition of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination.
Yet over time, its various bodies became a platform to attack, delegitimize and demonize the Jewish state, as well as to deny Jews the very right it once recognized. From UNESCO to the Human Rights Council, representatives of authoritarian and non-democratic countries turned the United Nations into a battleground in which Israeli and American diplomats constantly have to fight for Israel. “The latest round of such battle is happening under the guise of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, in which anti-Zionist and antisemitic opinions are institutionalized,” said JNS.
One of the foremost figures in the fight against the Orwellian reality of such U.N. institutions is Hillel Neuer, an international lawyer and the executive director of the UN Watch, who dedicates his efforts to scrutinizing the international circus run by some of the worst violators of human rights who, while targeting Israel, often ignore or suppress inquires into human-rights violations by countries such as Russia, China, and Iran. This made him the most hated man in Geneva, and the subject of many campaigns to suppress his voice and stop his work.
Mentioned in Geopolitical Intelligence Services, “The UN Human Rights Council is Broken,” July 26, 2023:
The United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) was established in 2006 by the UN General Assembly. In 2005, Secretary-General Kofi Annan had called for an end to the discredited Commission on Human Rights, which, in his words, had “cast a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system as a whole.” Unfortunately, the record shows that the HRC has not performed better than the discredited Commission.
Since 2006, the HRC has adopted between four and eight resolutions condemning Israel annually. According to a database compiled by UN Watch, Israel was the focus of 103 of 280 condemnatory resolutions (37 percent) adopted by the HRC from 2006 through May 2023. In 2022, Israel was condemned more often than Afghanistan, Myanmar, North Korea and Syria. Only Russia was condemned as many times as Israel by the HRC that year. Although some condemnatory resolutions contain praise, this rarely happens for Israel: 102 of 210 total condemnatory resolutions lacking any praise (49 percent) adopted by the HRC from 2006 to May 2023 focused on Israel.
Mentioned in The Jerusalem Post, “UN Bodies Receive Millions from ‘Terror Charities’ – Opinion,” July 30, 2023:
The United Nations has a terrorism problem. In 2021, UN Watch exposed 100 UNRWA employees for inciting violence and antisemitism online. UNRWA child educators have reportedly glorified Hitler and terrorism, while UNRWA textbooks have glorified violent jihad and characterized Jews as enemies of Islam. The Qatar Charity partnered with UNRWA at least thrice between 2013 and 2022. Their partnerships during that time frame alone amounted to at least $4.5 million.
Mentioned in The Jerusalem Post, “Vital to Protect Pro-Israel UN Votes From Pacific Nations,” Jonathan Schanzer, July 23, 2023:
It is no secret that Israel is disproportionately singled out at the United Nations. Last year, the General Assembly approved 15 anti-Israel resolutions. That was two more than all of the other resolutions criticizing other countries, according to UN Watch. The United States, Israel’s longstanding ally, consistently opposes these measures, with very few exceptions. Joining the US is usually a handful of Pacific island nations.
Quoted in Bassam Tawil, “UN, Arabs Whitewash Assad’s Atrocities and Instead Blame … Guess Who?,” Jewish News Syndicate, July 4, 2023:
The League of Arab States, which represents 22 member countries, has spent several decades issuing statements of condemnation against Israel. Each time Israel launches a counterterrorism operation in response to Palestinian terrorism, including rockets fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel and shootings, stabbings and car-rammings, it is denounced.
The outrageous hypocrisy and double-standards of the Arab countries and the United Nations is astonishing—and unacceptable. The League of Arab States pretends to care about its fellow Arabs, while its good friend, the United Nations, purports to care about human rights.
“Why has this Council chosen silence?” U.N. Watch’s Hillel Neuer asked. “Because Israel could not be blamed. Because, in truth, the despots who run this Council couldn’t care less about Palestinians, or about any human rights. They seek to demonize Israeli democracy, to delegitimize the Jewish state, to scapegoat the Jewish people. They also seek something else: To distort and pervert the very language and idea of human rights.”
Cited in The Jewish Chronicle, “UN envoy accused of flouting impartiality rules,” July 20, 2023:
Dina Rovner, a legal adviser for pro-Israel advocacy group UN Watch, claimed Albanese’s Twitter history indicates she is not adhering to rules that require UN human rights experts to remain impartial.
Albanese’s social media posts show she is “unqualified for the position and should never have been selected in the first place,” Rovner said.
