UN Cuts Off UN Watch Director for Highlighting UNRWA Antisemitism

Jewish Journal

Aaron Bandler

October 4, 2021

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) cut off UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer as he was highlighting antisemitic social media posts from various United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

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The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) cut off UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer as he was highlighting antisemitic social media posts from various United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Speaking virtually at the October 2 UNHRC session, Neuer cited UN Watch’s recent report about two UNRWA teachers in the Gaza Strip, one who posted an Adolf Hitler video to Facebook “with quotes to ‘enrich and enlighten your minds’” and another who posted “conspiracy theories” about Jews controlling the world, starting the COVID-19 pandemic aiming “to destroy Islam.” At that point, UNHRC President Nazhat Shameem Khan cut off Neuer’s video feed, accusing Neuer of making “insulting and inflammatory remarks.”

In a series of tweets, Neuer called on Khan “to apologize and rescind your ruling” or else he will ask U.N. Secretary-General Antonio-Guterres to publicly state “that the highest human rights body of the United Nations has just sent a dangerous message to the world when, without any basis, you summarily and arbitrarily blocked me from presenting a report about systemic antisemitism incited daily by the teachers of UNRWA.”

Neuer also noted in a tweet that “Israel is the only nation treated as a standing item on the UNHRC agenda” and that “for three hours, tyrants vilified Israel” during Shabbat, when Israel was unable to defend itself in the forum.

StandWithUs Israel Executive Director Michael Dickson tweeted that the UNHRC “can’t handle the truth.”

The Zionist Federation, a pro-Israel advocacy group in Britain and Ireland, tweeted, “Kudos to @HillelNeuer of @UNWatch for telling the truth. Disgraceful and entirely out of order that he was cut short by the @UN_HRC and reprimanded for simply stating the facts.”

Joel M. Petlin, Superintendent of the Kiryas Joel District, tweeted: “So according to @UN_HRC, it’s *derogatory, insulting and inflammatory* to call out the #Antisemitism expressed by teachers funded by @UNRWA, but it’s not a problem for these same teachers to praise Hitler on Facebook. It’s just the warped logic of the United Nations.”

The August 2 UN Watch report, titled “Beyond the Textbooks,” documents 22 examples of UNRWA staffers promulgating antisemitism on social media. Neuer said in a statement at the time of the report’s publication: “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.”

Read the full article here.