HAMODIA

By Sara Lehman

Hillel Neuer has been championing human rights in the lion’s den for over a decade. As executive director of UN Watch, the Geneva-based NGO that monitors U.N. activities, Neuer fights tirelessly and fearlessly against discrimination and injustice at the United Nations, specifically when aimed at the lone Jewish state.

Awarded by McGill University with an honorary doctorate in 2018 for being “a voice for those without a voice,” Neuer’s work as an advocate for human rights has earned him universal accolades.

According to the Journal de Montreal, Neuer “makes the U.N. tremble.” And the Tribune de Genève wrote that Neuer is “feared and dreaded” by despots at the U.N.

Dictatorships around the globe have reason to fear Neuer, whose arguments to advance human rights have generated heated response and have become flashpoints for debate.

In 2007, Neuer’s rebuke of the Human Rights Council was “a diplomatic moment to remember,” and 10 years later, his speech, “Where Are Your Jews?” has been translated into multiple languages and viewed millions of times across social media.

A native of Montreal, Neuer is a lawyer who represented victims of discrimination and worked on human rights constitutional-related cases.

Hamodia spoke with Neuer about his fight for justice and his specific efforts to achieve equality for Israel and for Jews in one of the world’s most hostile environments.

As a human rights activist, do you find yourself primarily defending Israel, or do your commitments extend to other countries?

We act on behalf of dozens of different causes, way beyond the cause of equal treatment for Israel. UN Watch speaks out vigorously for human rights in Venezuela, Iran, Zimbabwe, Russia, and China. We are one of the leading groups at the U.N. bringing dissidents and victims to speak and testify at the U.N. We are very active on human rights issues, and fighting dictatorships that don’t have any institutions of democracy or accountability. That’s where we focus — our role is to give a voice and a platform to human rights champions.

You recently made headlines as one of the NGOs whose work led to a review of the Palestinian Authority by the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which resulted in confronting anti-Semitism in the PA. In what way did UN Watch contribute to this first-ever critique, and what’s the next step in this process?

It’s interesting to understand what happened here. About five years ago, the Palestinian Authority began to try to join various international bodies. Once they got recognized as the “State of Palestine” by the U.N. around seven years ago, they tried to use that to boost their international status, as well as to pursue Israel in all kinds of international litigation — to join bodies as a means to go after Israel, to sue Israel in international tribunals.

But the Palestinians didn’t sufficiently realize that by joining various bodies, they themselves would have to be examined.

For the first time, they were examined last summer by the U.N. Committee against Racial Discrimination. It took place in Geneva, across the street from our office. We went there and submitted a major legal brief, 32 pages, documenting how the PA violates the anti-racism convention, how they routinely and systematically discriminate against Jews — in their laws, their practices, their policies, their incitement in the media, public officials, imams, TV, you name it. And we documented all of it, including pictures of anti-Semitic caricatures in their schoolbooks.

Then we went on the U.N. website to see the other reports from Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, and all the Palestinian NGOs. And guess what? There were none, other than two groups, including NGO Monitor.

There are dozens and dozens of pro-Palestinian NGOs, funded by the EU, that are always at the U.N. whenever Israel is examined, which happens every regular session. At the last minute, only one NGO showed its face, after I tweeted that they are effectively boycotting a session on the Palestinians. So we were the ones who ended up briefing the experts, and a number of them accepted our material, and asked questions — and this made the Palestinians lash out. They couldn’t deal with being examined, instead of always Israel. And they tried to cast aspersions against us.

The U.N. Human Rights Council’s elected members include an absurd collection of rogue states of human rights abusers, such as Venezuela. With more than half of the Council’s resolutions being against Israel, the only true democracy in the Middle East, do you predict this farcical trend to continue?

Each country has its own dynamic. Some countries improve, and some get worse. The government in Brazil is now beginning to change its vote, which is excellent. The U.K. changed a number of its votes at the Human Rights Council to support rather than condemn Israel. That was important.

But you can have the opposite: You can have countries like Canada and Australia, who had more supportive governments that are sometimes replaced by less supportive governments. Currently, Trudeau generally supports Israel, but on a few new resolutions he tends to abstain; in one famous case, as exposed by UN Watch, he even voted against Israel. So it’s hard to see a trend.

My experience in the past several decades is that hostility to Israel has been relatively consistent, even as some governments change. But it’s our responsibility to keep pushing, to keep making the case. You never know if Israel gets stronger and has more resources — politically, economically, militarily, with cybersecurity, technological power. It may slowly begin to compete with the oil weapon that the Arabs use so effectively.

There are many factors that go into the U.N. bias against Israel. There are 56 Islamic states, and there’s only one Jewish state. There’s vote-trading, fear of terrorism, attitudes toward the Jewish state wherein Israel is treated as the Jew among the nations. There are factors that won’t go away. But the U.N. remains a very important international forum that is regarded as credible around the world, so it’s our job to stay there and make the case.

As an advocate for Israel and for the truth in a hostile environment, do you ever get discouraged or feel like you’re fighting an uphill battle?

It’s always an uphill battle. In terms of getting discouraged — yes. There are moments when we’re sitting in an emergency session called to condemn Israel, which is defending itself against terrorism, and you hear not only the worst dictatorships pronouncing themselves on human rights but also European democracies and the whole world ganging up on the Jewish state for reasons with no logical basis to them. It’s also discouraging to see dictators abusing human rights and seeing the worst abusers elected to high positions.

Jewish tradition says that we go through life with two pieces of paper in one pocket — one that says you came from dust and you go back to dust, and the other that says the world was created for you. There are moments when we think we are dust, but then there are moments when we showed up and made the case about Palestinian anti-Semitism and our material entered into the U.N.'s questions and in their final verdict. And the headline went around the world.

There was a moment when we revealed that the U.N. Women’s Rights Commission elected Saudi Arabia in a secret ballot, with scandalous support from democracies like Belgium, Ireland, Norway and Sweden.

There were moments when, because of UN Watch, the German Bundestag began to ask why Germany is voting the wrong way on Israel; when Dutch MPs bring up our questions, when the House of Lords raises our issues and challenges the government, and when the U.K. changes its vote.

There are many examples where, piece by piece, we feel that our work has a certain resonance and the truth is getting out. We get thousands of messages from supporters around the world. All of this is extremely encouraging and gives us the strength and wind in our sails to keep fighting.