The Jewish Chronicle reported his additional remarks: "Israel acts above the law and does not respect UN resolutions, and also we know this aggressive state of Israel is... nuclear armed and a centre of a colonial regime that is based on apartheid against the Palestinian people." Shtayyeh, whose tenure ran from 2019 through 2024, told members of the 202-year-old institution that certain Israeli legislators envision national boundaries stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates. His closing statement declared: "We all should say that Israel is the biggest cause of destabilisation in the region."

In my debate tonight at the Oxford Union, I said that their proposition—"Israel is a greater threat to regional stability than Iran"—struck me as deep satire, but then I recalled that 501 of their members voted to back the student chair who cheered the killing of Charlie Kirk.

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) November 13, 2025

Following the debate, Neuer wrote on X: "In my debate tonight at the Oxford Union, I said that their proposition – 'Israel is a greater threat to regional stability than Iran' – struck me as deep satire, but then I recalled that 501 of their members voted to back the student chair who cheered the killing of Charlie Kirk," The Telegraph noted. The October controversy surrounding George Abaraonye, who held the title of president-elect at the Oxford Union, resulted in his removal following widespread criticism of his apparent approval of Kirk's shooting death, The Telegraph reported.

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For three decades, UN Watch has stood as a beacon of light in Geneva, scrutinizing the United Nations' adherence to its founding principles. Founded by Morris Abram – a prominent civil rights lawyer who helped free Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from prison and won a landmark Supreme Court case for black voting rights – the organization has evolved from its 1993 origins to become one of the most persistent watchdogs of the international body.

At its helm is Hillel Neuer, an Orthodox Jew and Canadian-born international lawyer. From his base in Geneva, where he has been for the last 20 years, Neuer has become a formidable presence in diplomatic circles, regularly testifying in Washington, the Hague, European parliaments, and, of course, the United Nations. Under his leadership, UN Watch has maintained its dual mandate: monitoring the UN's adherence to its charter while combating antisemitism and discrimination against Israel.

Q: How did you get involved in UN Watch?

"I had been active for Israel since I was in college. I studied law and political science and worked for a think tank in Jerusalem called the Shalem Center. When I was in law school, I was writing essays and op-eds for newspapers. When I studied law at McGill University in Montreal, my mentor was Professor Irwin Cotler, who's a distinguished human rights lawyer. He was a lawyer for Natan Sharansky when he was a prisoner in Russia and for many human rights activists who were put in prison. He was my teacher and a very big influence in the work that I've done."

Q: What does your daily schedule look like?

"It varies because I would say there's about three months a year when the United Nations Human Rights Council based in Geneva is in session – September, March, and June. When they're in session, I'm participating in debates. When the UN is not in session, we're constantly monitoring and responding to what's going on at the UN. I'm very active on social media, day and night."

"For example, today, we exposed the UN agency UNRWA, how their top officials routinely meet with Hamas leaders and cooperate with them, and how UNRWA teaches their students to call for the killing of Jews. I was busy preparing the Twitter thread with evidence and making the case about UNRWA's complicity with terrorism. Our work involves a lot of communication. It's writing, whether on social media or writing articles. I do a lot of interviews like this one."

EXPOSED: UNRWA chiefs secretly met top terrorists, telling them: "We are united, no one can separate us." In Feb. 2017, UNRWA's @PKraehenbuehl met Hamas' Ali Baraka & Islamic Jihad's Abu Imad al-Rifai, who sent suicide bombers to kill troops in Iraq. https://t.co/1FucsZBXE7 pic.twitter.com/Ga88XrcVG8

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) November 21, 2024

Q: How did UN Watch find its sources for this case?

"Our research team is just going on the internet and finding things on social media. Most of the material that we're reporting are things that are openly available, which either no one is looking for or no one really cares. We know how to look for things. We're showing screenshots of what they say, linking to their own Facebook pages or their own websites."

Q: Have you experienced personal threats or received threats to the UN Watch?

"We anger a lot of people because we don't just criticize Islamic terrorist groups like Hamas or Hezbollah. Throughout the year, we bring human rights heroes from Russia, China, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Belarus, and North Korea. We are a thorn in the side of many of the world's worst regimes. I try not to let it get in the way. They're trying to hold you back and punch you down. You've got to stay focused on the important work and just tell the truth."

Q: Where were you on Oct. 7?

"I was visiting Jerusalem and I first heard an alarm around 8 in the morning. I went into the bomb shelter, grabbed my phone, even though it was Shabbat, and started tweeting there. I normally don't tweet on Shabbat."

Q: How has your job changed after Oct. 7?

"It's been very intense. Many of the things we're doing are the same. We were fighting UN bias for many years, and now, it's just on steroids. The speed has been increased exponentially. If you have one awful UN thing that happens maybe once a week or once a month, you might have multiple awful UN distortions happening in a single day. There's been a tsunami of hate around the world, and the UN is a part of it, unfortunately."

Q: What do you think of Trump's pick of Elise Stefanik as US ambassador to the UN?

"Elise Stefanik is famous for what she was able to do against the heads of Harvard and Penn. She exposed them before the world, asking them simple questions about how they tolerated calls for genocide against Jews and saw how morally bankrupt they were. I think that was extraordinary. We're hoping she's going to bring that same fierce pursuit of justice to the UN. I see her as kind of a B-52 bomber. She's heading into the UN, which, in John Bolton's words, is a 'target-rich environment.' And the job of folks like me who are on the ground, who've been inside the UN for many years, is if she's the B-52 bomber, then our job is just to call in the targets. I hope to be working with her closely."

Q: How does she compare to the current US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield?

"The current ambassador is a career diplomat, so it's just a completely different type of person. I've had no personal interaction with her."

Q: The mission statement of UN Watch is "to monitor the performance of the United Nations by the yardstick of its own charter." How do you feel the UN is faring in this sense today? Is the UN failing to execute its charter?

"The UN is huge. There are numerous agencies, and some agencies perform better than others. But sadly, some of the main agencies are really falling short. Certainly, the Human Rights Council, in which 60% are dictatorships. China is a member. Cuba is a member. Eritrea, which has slave labor, is a member. Qatar, which sponsors terrorism, is a member. So that's a complete failure. The body that's supposed to be the leader of human rights at the United Nations is controlled by dictatorships."

"They appoint experts who are, in fact, enemies of human rights. I'll give you two examples. UN Rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese is openly supporting Hamas. She told Hamas, 'You have the right to resist' at a Hamas conference. She said that 'America is subjugated by the Jewish lobby.' She routinely spreads blood libels against Israel. She often compares Israel to the Third Reich, to the Nazis. It's really the worst form of antisemitism. She's a UN expert of the Human Rights Council."

Francesca Albanese projects antisemitism and support for Hamas terrorism around the globe.

She has arrived in New York to project hate in the UN and campuses across the city. So we decided to project the truth: https://t.co/2XEWJbYm8O#FireFrancesca: https://t.co/6FNaka4tFv pic.twitter.com/cCGuURoUyV

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 30, 2024

"There's another expert. Alena Douhan was appointed to advocate against sanctions. Whenever Western countries impose sanctions on a dictatorship like Iran, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Cuba, or Syria, then this UN official will say that those sanctions are themselves a violation. She said if there are problems in Iran, it's because of American, British, and Canadian sanctions. She most recently went to China and said the Uighurs are treated very well. It's a completely inverted Orwellian upside-down situation where you have the worst dictatorships being championed by a UN so-called human rights expert. The UN Human Rights Council, the body that is supposed to be a defender of human rights, is the complete opposite."

"Iran was a member of the Women's Rights Commission of the UN until recently. Thanks to our campaign, we are the ones who helped get them expelled from that body. Now, Saudi Arabia is going to be the chair. Even though Saudi Arabia is improving in many ways, still the situation of women is not the best in the world, let's just say. It's absurd that Saudi Arabia has been made the chair of that body. Iran was elected to certain UN positions dealing with disarmament, which is absurd because Iran is arming terrorist groups and pursuing nuclear weapons illegally."

Q: Do you still support the UN as an institution? Is there still hope for it?

"The UN is huge. It's not going away. And the UN is what the member states make of it. Sadly, too often, democracies do not speak out. They just go along to get along. We need our democracies, Britain, France, Germany, the US, Canada, and Australia, to speak out more, introduce actions against dictatorships, push back against the election of dictatorships, and stop the demonization and singling out of Israel on a repeated basis."

"It's always going to be a problem because half the world's governments are dictatorships, and the UN is so removed from the citizens. The more removed you are from the citizen, the more you'll get a lack of accountability. There's a lot of corruption inside the UN. There's very little oversight."

Q: Many call for the US and Israel to remove themselves from the UN because it has become so immoral and biased. What do you say to that?

"It's complicated. There are a lot of decisions that happen there, and the US wants to be there when those decisions are being discussed. I don't think it's likely that the US is going to pull out. It wouldn't necessarily make the UN go away. Other countries are not pulling out. The UK is not pulling out. France is not pulling out. So even if the US pulled out, the UN would continue to be influential because it is the world's main body. Even if you had no UN, there would be other international gatherings, and the same anti-Israel majorities would appear. So, to some degree, you wouldn't necessarily eliminate the source of the problem."

"I'm not saying that we're obliged to stick with the UN always. But the reality is that it's there. A fair question you could ask is whether the UN needs to be in New York. It could be that President Trump might say, 'We're not leaving the UN. But the UN has other offices. Maybe the main headquarters of the UN should move to Nairobi.' Maybe less people are going to take the UN seriously when it's not based in Manhattan. So I think there are some options."

"If Israel were to leave the UN, that would only make its enemies very happy. To be recognized as an independent country, most people assume that you have a seat at the UN. Israel fought so hard in 1949 to be admitted to the UN. And the truth is that if they would leave, it would only gladden the hearts of its enemies. So I don't think that leaving is necessarily really an effective solution to what is a very difficult problem, namely Israel being targeted in such an extreme way."

Q: Where do you think the UN will be in five years' time?

"It will be very interesting to see with the Trump administration. But I hope that we'll have more democracies in the world, and I hope that the democracies will begin to change their approach and hold the UN accountable. To some degree, the UN reflects the kind of world we have, and we have to hope that we're going to have a better world."

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The United Nations General Assembly concluded its activities for 2021 over the weekend, and this year, too, Israel was the target of a cascade of condemnations and resolutions against it, well beyond and completely disproportionate to other countries.

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The two latest condemnations were issued on Friday due to the automatic anti-Israel majority in the UN. In one resolution, pertaining to an event in 2006, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed "concern that Israel did not acknowledge its responsibility for the oil spill" off the Lebanese coast and failed to clarify how it intends to compensate the Lebanese government for it.

The second resolution condemned Israel for "exploiting the natural resources of the Palestinians, and on the Golan Heights." It should be noted that the text makes no mention of Hamas' commandeering of international aid money to fund the construction of terror tunnels rather than to rebuild destroyed infrastructure; environmental pollution caused by Palestinian tire burning; destruction of flora and fauna with arson balloons and kites; and refusal to develop their own water resources and deal with their own sewage as required by the Oslo Accords.

In total, the General Assembly passed 14 anti-Israel resolutions in 2021, while the other 194 countries in the world were hit with a grand total of four resolutions of condemnation – against North Korea, Iran, Myanmar, and Russian activity in Crimea. Meanwhile, a draft resolution against the Syrian regime highlighting its crimes against humanity was deferred.

UN Watch, a Geneva-based non-governmental watchdog organization, harshly criticized the United Nations.

"The UN's assault on Israel with a torrent of one-sided resolutions is surreal," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.

"It's absurd that in the year 2021, out of some 20 UN General Assembly resolutions that criticize countries, 14 of them – 70% – were focused on one single country: Israel. Make no mistake: the purpose of the lopsided condemnations is to demonize the Jewish state," said Neuer.

Neuer also blamed the UN establishment, not just its member states, for the anti-Israel bias, noting that just last Thursday a resolution on 'The right of the Palestinian people to self-determination' was adopted by a vote of 168 to 5, with 10 abstentions. Out of hundreds of self-determination claims worldwide, the UNGA singled out one – the claim against Israel – while omitting Palestinian obligations to dismantle terrorist infrastructure before a state is to be created.

"The UN's disproportionate assault against the Jewish state undermines the credibility of what is supposed to be an impartial international body. When the General Assembly gives in to politicization and selectivity by discriminating against Israel, it violates the UN Charter's guarantee of equal treatment to all nations, large and small," Neuer added.

"We note that while France, Germany, Sweden and other EU states have supported nearly all of the 14 resolutions adopted against Israel during this General Assembly session, 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 170 other countries," said Neuer.

"Where's the supposed EU concern for international law and human rights?" he asked.

"Today's farce at the General Assembly underscores a simple fact: the UN'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," said Neuer.

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The UN General Assembly passed three resolutions last week that targeted Israel, which brings the total to 14 resolutions being adopted in the next month that single out Israel.

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"The UN's assault on Israel with a torrent of one-sided resolutions is surreal," said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer after the three resolutions were adopted on Wednesday. "It's absurd that in the year 2021, out of some 20 UN General Assembly resolutions that criticize countries, 70% are focused on one single country – Israel. What drives these lopsided condemnations is a powerful political agenda to demonize the Jewish state."

One of the resolutions from Wednesday refers to the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site, only by its Muslim name, "Haram al-Sharif." Another resolution solely puts the blame on Israel for the lack of peace in the Middle East and makes no mention of terrorist attacks and human rights violations by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The resolutions were adopted two days after the United Nations held its annual "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People" on Nov. 29.

Neuer said France, Germany, Sweden and other European Union states are expected to support almost all of the 14 resolutions against Israel.

He added that "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 170 other countries. Where's the supposed EU concern for international law and human rights?"

UN Watch recently launched a detailed database that documents the UN's bias against Israel. It revealed that since 2015, the General Assembly has passed 115 resolutions condemning Israel and only 45 against other countries.

The Conference of Presidents condemned the UN resolution omitting the Temple Mount designation.

"We are deeply disturbed by the deliberate and offensive omission of the 'Temple Mount' designation in the 'Jerusalem resolution,' passed by the United Nations General Assembly, which effectively denies both Jewish and Christian connection to one of the most sacred sites for all three faith communities," said Dianne Lob, chair; William Daroff, CEO; and Malcolm Hoenlein, vice chair of the Conference of Presidents.

They emphasized that "the vote sets a dangerous moral precedent that is both historically inaccurate and detracts from critical efforts to promote inclusivity and peace in the region. We welcome the Biden administration and the governments of Australia, Canada, Hungary, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau for rejecting this shameful and false resolution, and call upon other nations to oppose resolutions that unfairly single out and condemn Israel while needlessly exacerbate political tensions."

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Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees launched an investigation into 10 of its teachers and employees who had been accused by the watchdog group of promoting hate speech and antisemitism online.

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Last week, the Geneva-based nongovernmental organization UN Watch said in a report that over 100 UNRWA staff members had publicly promoted violence and antisemitism on social media. The report, titled "Beyond the Textbooks," listed 22 recent cases of incitement by agency staff online, violating UNRWA's own "zero-tolerance policy for hatred."

For instance, UNRWA math teacher in Gaza, Nahed Sharawi, posted a video on social media of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler with "inspirational" quotes to "enrich and enlighten your thoughts and minds," and UNRWA teacher Husni Masri shared antisemitic conspiracy theories that Jews controlled the world, were responsible for the coronavirus pandemic and sought to destroy Islam.

In response, the UNRWA published a statement on Sunday in which it called UN Watch "an organization with a deep history of unfounded and politically-driven assertions against the agency."

It also said that only 10 of the 22 people mentioned in the report were associated with the agency, against whom they immediately launched a "thorough investigation" to determine whether they in fact "violated the agency's social media policies."

The agency further claimed that the watchdog was deliberately exaggerating the severity of the matter.

"In previous reports over a five-year period, UN Watch identified a total of 101 cases where UNRWA personnel allegedly posted content on social media that was in breach of its Regulatory Framework," it said.

"To suggest that hate is widespread within the agency and schools is not only misleading and false but validates sensationalist and politically motivated attacks that deliberately harm an already vulnerable community: refugee children.

The statement said that "UNRWA's mandate is to provide life-saving humanitarian assistance to over five million Palestine refugees," emphasizing that the agency invests  immense efforts in training its personnel to promote their understanding of neutrality and ethics training."

UN Watch's Executive Director Hillel Neuer shot back, saying that UNRWA was not addressing the bigger picture. "The fact that UNRWA's education system is repeatedly hiring and putting in the classroom teachers that admire Hitler and propagate hatred and terrorism," is the problem, he said.

"Deleting a post on Facebook does not remove the hate in those teachers' hearts and minds. It does not solve the problem. Palestinian children deserve to be fully protected from teachers of hatred and racism. Zero tolerance in schools means you remove racists from the classroom, period."

i24NEWS contributed to this report. 

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The Geneva-based nongovernmental organization that monitors UN activity found 113 instances of incitement to violence by UNRWA staff, in clear violation of UNRWA's rules, according to the report.

Among the social media posts cited by UN Watch was one from math teacher Nahed Shrarawi in which she shared a video that included an image of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler along with inspirational quotes. Another UNRWA teacher in the West Bank by the name of Husni Masri shared a post promoting conspiracy theories about Jews, including that Jewish people want to rule the world and destroy Islam and were responsible for the coronavirus.

According to UN Watch, incitement to violence and hatred among UNRWA's 30,000 staff members is a far greater problem than the report shows as the incidents included in the report pertain to those with Facebook accounts who openly identify as agency employees.

UN Watch emphasized that since UNRWA has not fired or taken any administrative action against those behind the inciting posts despite requests from the NGO, the agency was fully responsible for their actions.

Hillel Neuer, UN Watch executive director, said: "Around the world, educators who incite hate and violence are removed, yet UNRWA, despite proclaiming zero tolerance for incitement, knowingly and systematically employs purveyors of terror and anti-Jewish hate.

"We call on the governments that fund UNWRA to take action to stop the vicious cycle of generations being taught to hate and violently attack Jews. We demand that UNRWA address the core problem and demonstrate its genuine commitment to basic norms of education in its schools by publicly condemning UNWRA employees who incite terrorism and antisemitism, removing them from their positions, and creating an independent and impartial investigation of all of its staff," Neuer said.

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Russia and Cuba were running unopposed, but China and Saudi Arabia were in a five-way race in the only contested race for seats on the Human Rights Council.

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In secret-ballot voting in the 193-member UN General Assembly on that race, Pakistan received 169 votes, Uzbekistan 164, Nepal 150, China 139 and Saudi Arabia just 90 votes. In 2016, the Saudis won a seat with 152 votes.

Despite announced reform plans by Saudi Arabia, Human Rights Watch and others strongly opposed its candidacy saying the Middle East nation continues to target human rights defenders, dissidents and women's rights activists and has demonstrated little accountability for past abuses, including the killing of Washington Post columnist and Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul two years ago.

Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, the organization founded by Khashoggi, said despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin on public relations "to cover his grotesque abuses, the international community just isn't buying it."

"Unless Saudi Arabia undertakes dramatic reforms to release political prisoners, end its disastrous war in Yemen and allow its citizens meaningful political participation, it will remain a global pariah," Whitson said.

Under the Human Rights Council's rules, seats are allocated to regions to ensure geographical representation.

Except for the Asia-Pacific contest, the election of 15 members to the 47-member Human Rights Council was all but decided in advance because all the other regional groups had uncontested slates.

Four countries won four Africa seats: Ivory Coast, Malawi, Gabon and Senegal. Russia and Ukraine won the two East European seats. In the Latin American and Caribbean group, Mexico, Cuba and Bolivia won the three open seats. And Britain and France won the two seats for the Western European and others group.

"Saudi Arabia's failure to win a seat on the Human Rights Council is a welcome reminder of the need for more competition in UN elections," Human Rights Watch's UN director, Louis Charbonneau, said after the results were announced,

"Had there been additional candidates, China, Cuba and Russia might have lost too," he said. "But the addition of these undeserving countries won't prevent the council from shining a light on abuses and speaking up for victims. In fact, by being on the council, these abusers will be directly in the spotlight."

Charbonneau earlier criticized UN member states, including Western nations, saying: "They don't want competition. ... Essentially these are backroom deals that are worked out among the regional groups."

Last week, a coalition of human rights groups from Europe, the United States and Canada called on UN member states to oppose the election of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Pakistan and Uzbekistan, saying their human rights records make them "unqualified."

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"Electing these dictatorships as UN judges on human rights is like making a gang of arsonists into the fire brigade," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.

The Geneva-based rights organization published a 30-page joint report with the Human Rights Foundation and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights evaluating candidates for council seats. The report lists Bolivia, Ivory Coast, Nepal, Malawi, Mexico, Senegal and Ukraine – all winners – as having "questionable" credentials due to problematic human rights and UN voting records that need improvement. It gave "qualified" ratings only to the United Kingdom and France.

Human Rights Watch pointed to an unprecedented call by 50 UN experts on June 26 for "decisive measures to protect fundamental freedoms in China," warning about its mass rights violations in Hong Kong and Tibet and against ethnic Uighurs in the Chinese province of Xinjiang as well as attacks on rights defenders, journalists, lawyers and government critics. Their call was echoed by over 400 civil society groups from more than 60 countries.

Of the four winners of seats in the Asia-Pacific group, China got the lowest vote – 139 compared to 180 votes when it won a seat in 2016.

The rights group said Russia's military operations with the Syrian government "have deliberately or indiscriminately killed civilians and destroyed hospitals and other protected civilian infrastructure in violation of international humanitarian law," and noted Russia's veto of UN Security Council resolutions on Syria, including blocking Damascus' referral to the International Criminal Court.

The Geneva-based Human Rights Council can spotlight abuses and has special monitors watching certain countries and issues. It also periodically reviews human rights in every UN member country.

Created in 2006 to replace a commission discredited because of some members' poor rights records, the new council soon came to face similar criticism, including that rights abusers sought seats to protect themselves and their allies.

The United States announced its withdrawal from the council in June 2018 partly because it considered the body a forum for hypocrisy about human rights, though also because Washington says the council is anti-Israel.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday's election of China, Russia and Cuba and last year's election of Venezuela – "countries with abhorrent human rights records" – further  validate the US withdrawal from the council. He said the US has taken its own actions to punish "human rights abusers in Xinjiang, Myanmar, Iran, and elsewhere."

Israel's UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan called on all democracies on the council "to immediately resign from this shameful and anti-Semitic body."

Human Rights Council spokesman Rolando Gomez said when the newly elected members start their three-year terms in January, 119 of the 193 UN member States will have served on the council, reflecting its diversity and giving the council "legitimacy when speaking out on human rights violations in all countries."

"If a State thinks they can conceal the human rights violations they may have committed, or escape criticism by sitting on the Human Rights Council, they are greatly mistaken," Gomez said.

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A week ago, the hypocrisy of the international system reached a new height with the announcement that Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Fatou Bensouda had decided there were sufficient grounds to open an investigation against Israel for alleged "war crimes."

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Neuer says that there is no alternative but for Israel to take on the ICC head-on. He thinks that ICC judges cannot adopt a position that contradicts that of the UN, which has recognized the "state of Palestine," and will therefore decide on an official investigation against Israel that centers on the accusation of war crimes and is expected to address Israeli settlements over the Green Line – which is why Israel declined to join the ICC in the first place.

"Over a course of a few years, the prosecutor was conducting a preliminary investigation, in which the court started to probe accusations that Israel was committing war crimes," Neuer said. "Now the main question is whether the judges will decide that the ICC has the authority to launch a full-scale investigation. Israel's position is that the Palestinian Authority is not a state, and therefore cannot be a plaintiff in the court or give it judicial prerogative. According to Israel, the PA does not meet the criteria of international law to be considered a state and therefore has no control over territory. So there is a basic debate here about the kind of judicial authority the court has," he says.

There have already been two attempts to try Israel, or rather senior Israeli officials, in The Hague. In 2012, the court rejected a suit against Israel for alleged war crimes supposedly committed during Operation Cast Lead, on the basis that "Palestine" was not a state and therefore it had no authority to discuss petitions on the issue. Since then, Israel's enemies have been working to create a situation that would allow Israel to be attacked in The Hague: at the end of 2012, the UN General Assembly recognized "Palestine" as an observer nation. Given that, despite an outcry from Israel, the PA was able to join the ICC in April 2015, and then rushed to file a suit against Israel.

A few weeks ago, the ICC rejected a petition from the Comoro Islands to discuss alleged Israeli war crimes committed during the raid on the Mavi Marmara vessel in May 2010. Turkey, which has committed plenty of war crimes itself, is not a member of the ICC and couldn't sue Israel itself, but the regime of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took care that the flotilla of which the Mavi Marmara was part sailed under the flag of another Muslim state, which was a member of the ICC and could therefore sue Israel. But the attempt failed.

Positions that became law

Neuer explains that this week's decision by the ICC presents a more complicated challenge for Israel.

"On one hand, we have the military conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, especially the recent clashes in the Gaza Strip and the accusations about war crimes being committed there. In this matter, Israel can say that it has a trusted military justice system that can and is authorized to handle these accusations itself, as other democracies do. The court can only take action as a last resort in instances where there is no credible justice system that can handle accusations of war crimes. It's clear that Israel is a democracy that is willing to put its highest-ranking officials on trials when necessary, and there are very few countries in the world that do that. So Israel can easily claim that the ICC has no authority to handle these issues," he says.

When it comes to the settlements, the picture is different.

"It was decided when the founding charter of the ICC was written, under pressure from Arab and Muslim states, that the transfer of a population to occupied areas would be considered a war crime," Neuer says.

"For Israel, building settlements is not, of course, a war crime. If a Jew builds a house in the Old City of Jerusalem, that is a Jew who is returning to the homeland of his forefathers in accordance with the principles of the Balfour Declaration."

"On the other hand, the UN now sees any Jew living beyond the Green Line, even in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, as committing a war crime. There is no differentiation between Gush Etzion, Psagot, or Hebron. According to the UN, the settlements are a war crime. Israel and its courts do not see them as a war crime. Therefore, it will be difficult for Israel to argue that its legal system can investigate this matter. Here, the ICC can say, 'If you don't intend to investigate, we will.'"

In effect, the ICC judges are being asked to make a political ruling about the status of Judea and Samaria, and east Jerusalem.

"They will say they are dealing with a legal issue, but of course, if we look at the wider picture, what is happening is that since 1967 the international community has found different ways of criminalizing Israel. It didn't happen in a single day. Gradually, a [legal] infrastructure arose that decided that Jews living in their ancestral homeland are war criminals according to law. This process occurred through UN resolutions and declarations of policy from the European Union, like the recent decision about labeling settlement goods.

"These positions turned into tools that are presented as international law, particularly UN Security Council Resolution 2334 of December 2016, which declared that the settlements were illegal. [Then-US President] Obama not only did not prevent it from passing, he encouraged it to be adopted. Its goal was to say that any Jew living over the Green Line is an occupier, even in east Jerusalem. So according to the UN and the ICC, Israel is in violation of international law."

Rights in Jerusalem and Hebron

In Neuer's opinion, Israel can say that the advancement of this international view is based on a political agenda.

"Take the case of the EU. Its stance on Israeli settlements does not hold for other similar situations. Turkey occupies northern Cyprus – there are settlements there, an obvious population transfer, and the EU is not only not responding, but also giving money to the residents of Cyprus. In other words, Israel is treated differently. It's obvious that the UN has a double standard when it comes to Israel. But we have higher expectations of the EU itself, since it is not an organization that represents dictatorships, like the UN Security Council.

"The EU is made up of democracies, and yet it still has a double standard when it comes to Israel. When I ask European diplomats why they vote against Israel in the UN General Assembly, they answer that it's because they care about international law and universal human rights. So why don't they bring a resolution about the Turkish occupation of Cyprus to a vote, or the Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara? The EU has no problem with this. The Turkish settlers in northern Cyprus are eligible for support from the EU, so why aren't they [the EU] giving money to Jewish settlers? They claim that they care about occupied territory, but the truth is – they don't. It's just a weapon developed over the past 50 years to attack the Jewish state."

Q: In effect, there are two contradictory international laws: the historic one, based on the Balfour Declaration, which gives Jews the right to settle the Land of Israel, and the one invented in the past 50 years with the goal of erasing the existing international law.

"Indeed. It's important to understand that the Balfour Declaration was not a strong-arm move by one government. It was the British Empire, which the time controlled a quarter of the world's territory. The Allies who won World War I worked together, and the declaration was ratified at the San Remo conference and became a mandate from the League of Nations that recognized the Jews' historic rights to the Land of Israel. It didn't pertain to just Tel Aviv, but also to Jerusalem, Hebron, and the biblical places that make up the heart of the Jews' historic homeland.

"We know that anti-Semitism changes its face. The current mutation of Jew-hatred is expressed in the Christian West and Muslim world's obsession with Israel. The claims against the Jews today rest on human rights, the war on racism and international law. Israel is accused of being a racist state, and the talk about occupation and the territories uses terminology that was used about the Nazis. The Nazis occupied, Israel occupies. The Nazis committed genocide, Israel is committing genocide. We are witnessing a grab of specific terminology that dehumanizes and delegitimizes Israel and the Jewish people."

Q: Do you see a scenario in which the ICC judges go back to the prosecutor and tell her the court has no authority to try the matter?

"Objectively speaking, there is no such state as 'Palestine.' [PA President] Mahmoud Abbas talks about it, and then he says he wants to hand the keys back to Israel. I've never heard any other entity say it's a state, but that 'tomorrow we'll give up our nation.' It's absurd. Abbas had no control over the Gaza Strip or large parts of Judea and Samaria, which under the Oslo Accords are still under Israeli control. And if he does control Gaza, he should be tried for war crimes because of the rocket fire on Israel from there. But the decision the judges make will be a political one, no doubt influenced by political factors. We know that the UN decided that Palestine is a state. So it's unlikely that they [the ICC] will make a decision that goes against that of the UN."

Q: So in terms of international law, does Palestine have national status, or not?

"The UN has declared Palestine a non-member state. It doesn't have the right to vote, like Israel or more than 190 other countries do. The moment they were recognized as a state they appealed to the ICC in The Hague and announced they wanted to give the ICC the authority to try war crimes committed by Israel in their territory. Thus far, the court has treated Palestine as a state. Therefore it started a preliminary investigation, and I expect they will decide that they have the authority to handle the matter."

Q: How can Israel fight that?

"By being sure of itself, its past, by creating alliances with different players in the international arena – Western countries and non-Western countries. And there is also the battle in the legal sphere. As part of its broader struggle, Israel has racked up plenty of achievements in the non-Western world. Israel's ties to non-Western nations, including some in the Middle East, have improved. On the other hand, its relations with the West have grown worse.

"Israel is facing a tough battle for the legitimacy of its historical narrative. Israeli leaders' declarations about their intention to annex certain areas don't help much when it comes to The Hague's investigation of the settlements. The battle should be waged through a combination of professional legal experts and political leadership, whose statements can have an adverse effect of the court. A conflict with the court is inevitable."

Q: The ICC itself has a serious problem with legitimacy. Two major world powers, the US and Russia, don't recognize it. A few African countries, including South Africa, have left it. Most Asian nations aren't members, not to mention the Arab world. Could a conflict with Israel further weaken its legitimacy?

"Thus far, the court has dealt with many war crimes in Africa. It would be very simple to attack Israel now, and it would make a lot of countries happy, especially Muslim ones. The question is what price they will pay for ... It's fairly clear that it would enrage the US. Incidentally, it's interesting that there was a preliminary investigation into alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan. The US announced it would not allow the ICC into its territory. Shortly thereafter, the investigation was dropped.

"If the judges in The Hague decide to take further steps against Israel, they will lose a certain degree of legitimacy among certain governments. But beyond that, in Europe – where members of legal academia would be happy to persecute Israel – and among the world's legal elite, they will win support. Maybe a few experts will recognize the absurdity of a court that is supposed to deal with the horrors that the worst dictatorships in the world perpetrate persecuting a democracy with a legal system that has authority, one that is involved in a conflict but still fights better than any other country in the world, as American and British generals have testified. There is no army in the world that operates as carefully as the IDF in identical conflicts. But a lot of people in the world don't see how absurd this is."

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Prior to their questioning of the PA, members of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination were addressed by UN Watch legal adviser Dina Rovner in a meeting with non-governmental organizations, as well as in a private briefing. Rovner highlighted the gross and systematic anti-Semitism by the PA and Hamas, as documented in a written submission by UN Watch.

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It also called attention to the failure of the Palestinian delegation – headed by Ammar Hijazi, deputy foreign minister for multilateral affairs – to acknowledge any of this in its submissions to the world body.

"Our shadow report and presentations today exposed how the PA's submissions to the committee completely ignored racist and discriminatory Palestinian practices, and how they tried to evade responsibility by shifting the focus of the review onto Israel," said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.

Notably, groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which lobbied for the Palestinians to be recognized as a state for the purpose of signing human-rights treaties saying that this would hold them to account, did not make a submission or statement for this first-ever review of the Palestinians by the UN's anti-racism committee.

Out of the nearly 40 Palestinian human-rights groups that appeared in the same UN building when Israel was reviewed earlier this year, only one, Al-Haq, attended the Palestinian Authority's review. This raised questions as to whether their primary focus is on improving Palestinian human rights said Neuer.

UN Watch's detailed submission revealed that the PA and Hamas routinely violate international commitments to combating racism, through laws, policies, and statements aimed at denying any Jewish rights in Israel or the Palestinian-controlled territories.

By contrast, in its own report, the PA sought to minimize its obligations as a party to the anti-racism convention by failing to address the problem of racism in Palestinian law and society and, as the UN experts realized, instead repeatedly tried to blame Israel.

"The PA exploits the reporting process of the anti-racism committee as yet another UN vehicle to attack Israel. This is a waste of the committee's time and resources, as Israel is subject to its own review later this year," said Neuer.

In nearly two hours of presenting before the committee, the PA blamed Israel for its problems related to discrimination, devoting only a few minutes to its own policies and practices.

The Palestinian delegates told the committee of their life "under Israel's racist occupation" and "the presence of apartheid," contrasted with the PA's alleged "commitment to work towards harmonizing legislation with the UN conventions."

In a rare plea, the PA delegation asked for "slack" from the committee for its first-ever review. Several of the UN experts pressed the PA on its failure to implement anti-discrimination policies, requesting proof that textbook materials had been reviewed for anti-Semitic material, and asking for explanations for Palestinian officials' documented incitement to terrorism.

The UN panel's review of the Palestinians continued through Wednesday morning.

"We trust that the committee will continue its work to hold the PA and Hamas accountable for their flagrant violations of the UN's convention against racism and the principles of international human rights law," said Neuer.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The meeting took place in the wake of a vote on Agenda Item 7 this past March, where the United Nations approved a number resolutions condemning Israel for committing human-rights abuses against Palestinians, in addition to calling on Israel to withdraw to the 1948 border lines, give the Golan Heights to civil war-torn Syria and cease building homes for Jews in Judea and Samaria.

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Hillel Neuer, executive director of the independent human-rights group UN Watch, said that Israel would again "be attacked by many bad countries, and a few democracies, with a laundry list about Israeli colonization, settlements and destroying Palestinian homes."

Indeed, at the UNHRC session on Monday, Syrian Ambassador Hussam Edin Aala – whose own leader, Bashar Assad, has used chemical weapons against his own people amid a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands – condemned Israel for its "occupation" of the Golan Heights and criticized US President Donald Trump for recognizing Israel's sovereignty there.

"We need to put an end to the actions of the occupation," which is "confiscating" land and "pillaging" resources, Aala said.

Although the last presentation of Agenda Item 7 in the United Nations was disheartening for Israel, Neuer witnessed more positive voting trends among Western countries that made him optimistic that this time around, Israel will not be the only country to speak out against the expected assault in the United Nations.

In the session last March, UN Watch held a massive rally that included European parliamentarians and intellectuals. Within the UN's general debate and breakout sessions, Neuer took the floor on behalf of UN Watch, encouraging other countries to call out the UN for its unfair treatment of Israel, which he deemed as "contrary to the UN's own charter, which guarantees equal treatment and universality."

Following the March rally and campaign, the UN vote later that week saw several countries suddenly change their positions on the annual votes to show a greater support for Israel. For the first time in history, Britain voted "no" to all four Arab-sponsored resolutions tabled under Agenda Item 7. Denmark, a new member of the council, fully backed Israel on the four votes, a marked departure from its usual policy in UN bodies. On the annual resolution calling to prosecute Israeli soldiers for "war crimes," Brazil, Hungary and Ukraine changed their votes to "no." On the annual resolution calling on Israel to surrender the Golan to Syria, Japan and Brazil changed their votes to "no."

Neuer believes that such changes have taken place thanks to the efforts of UN Watch, which aims to expose discrimination against Israel within the United Nations.

"Day in and day out, we are making this case in the media, social media, online petitions and discussions with governments," said Neuer.

While acknowledging that it may be impossible to know precisely why a country changes its votes, Neuer noted, "When Britain changed its vote last session, it cited UN Watch statistics mentioning that in the first decade of the human-rights council, more than half of all resolutions passed singled out Israel.

Still, there are several challenges in attempting to undermine what Neuer called the "default position" of UN member states' voting patterns against Israel.

'There are overwhelming odds against Israel'

Over the past 50 years, the 56-nation-strong Muslim voting block has led a campaign in the UN to single out and delegitimize Israel through one-sided resolutions and investigations. With the power of oil and sovereign wealth funds that will invest in a member state depending on how it votes in the UN, Neuer explained, many countries vote to appease the Arab and Muslim nations. If they vote with the block, they can expect favors in return, but if they vote for Israel, claimed Neuer, "they fear a rise in terrorism."

In addition to the unofficial practice of vote trading, anti-Semitic attitudes overpower the value of international law. Neuer recalled meeting with European diplomats who "show an ingrained hostility to Israel, claiming they're motivated by international law."

However, he continued, "You never see them condemning other countries for breaking international law. You don't see them taking action against Hamas rockets fired at civilians in violation of international law; you don't see them taking action Saudi Arabia, which tortures women and activists in violation of international law."

While member states have no problem singling out Israel in international organizations, said Neuer, when any critique of other countries are brought up, member states often complain that the critiques are out of place.

"There is no doubt that singling out the only Jewish state in the UN is a new form of anti-Semitism," said Neuer. "There needs to be a groundswell of activism and advocacy demanding an elimination of this gross form of discrimination against the Jewish state, and by extension, the Jewish people."

"That's the natural state of things. There are overwhelming odds against Israel. It is an uphill battle and constant fight," he said.

Even so, Neuer is still fighting.

Hoping to increase public knowledge about voting patterns on Israel and to expose hypocrisy, UN Watch will create a new online database available this year that includes updated information about every resolution dealing with Israel, key talking points for what's wrong with the UN and how to fix it, and an online petition that the public can use to petition their foreign ministries and members of parliament.

"On the database, you will be able to see which country belongs to which UN bodies – who sits on the human-rights council, who sit on the women's rights commission. You'll find some shocking things; for example, you'll find that Saudi Arabia and Iran are on the women's rights council and China and Cuba on the human-rights council."

According to Neuer, the ability to make a change within the UN begins with being informed, and then, speaking out.

"If all citizens and countries do this," he contended, "it can make the difference."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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