Transcript [00:00] Yes. I mean, you know, if she's watching, I would say, Madame Albanese, please go ahead and sue me. You [00:05] know, your tweet claimed outright defamation. Please go ahead and sue me. Make my day. [00:15] Welcome to The Honest Take, the show that goes past the headlines to find out what's actually [00:20] true about Israel and about the people covering it. I'm Ben Chertoff, and today Hillel Neuer of UN [00:26] Watch returns to the pod. He's a man who spent two decades watching the world's human rights [00:32] machinery get pointed at exactly one country. [00:41] 25 years ago this month, Colin Powell pulled the American delegation out of United Nations [00:47] conference in Durban, South Africa. Israel walked out with them. It was called the Conference [00:53] Against Racism. New South Africa post-apartheid the front end of a new century. Serious people [01:00] went in hopeful. Irwin Cotler, who represented Nelson Mandela, has written about the hope he [01:06] carried into that room, and here's what came out of it. Thousands marching in the streets, equating [01:12] Zionism with Nazism. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion passed around as literature [01:19] tables laid out with pamphlets, with caricatures you'd recognize from Der Stürmer. In the official [01:26] governmental declaration, exactly one country was named as a perpetrator of racism. And in [01:32] the NGO forum running alongside it, Israel was charged with genocide, apartheid and crimes [01:39] against humanity. Three phrases that are ambient today and weren't then. Tom Lantos was in the room, [01:46] the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress. He came out of it saying it was the most [01:52] sickening and unabashed display of hatred for Jews he had witnessed since the Nazi period, and [01:59] then the part that makes this urgent. On September 28th, three weeks from the day that we're [02:04] recording this, the UN General Assembly gives up an entire day to commemorate Durban [02:11] 25th anniversary. High level meeting, formal declaration and almost nothing in the press. The [02:17] resolution that set it up passed in July 142 votes in favor and only three against. [02:24] So this is a conversation about an origin story that is still being observed on the calendar by [02:31] the institution that hosted it, where the vocabulary was manufactured, who paid for the room, [02:37] and why. The word genocide was already fastened to Israel 22 years before October 7th. [02:44] Hillel Neuer is a lawyer, the executive director of UN Watch in Geneva and, by a wide margin, the [02:50] most persistent thorn in the side of the UN Human Rights Council, Hillel Neuer. Welcome back to The Honest [02:57] Take. Thank you. So we're recording this on September 3rd. 25 years ago today, the US [03:04] walked out of the World Conference Against Racism. Israel walked with them. Can you set the scene for [03:10] somebody who was maybe ten years old in 2001? What was that conference supposed to be [03:17] and what was it by the time Colin Powell pulled the plug on it? Well, look, this was supposed to [03:24] be the World Conference Against Racism held in the new post-apartheid South Africa, the beginning [03:30] of the 21st century, 2001. A lot of people were excited. My teacher, human rights lawyer and professor [03:37] Irwin Cotler, talks about the excitement that he had as someone who fought in the anti-apartheid [03:42] movement, someone who represented Nelson Mandela. It was very exciting to be part of a world [03:47] anti-racism conference in the new post-apartheid South Africa. And yet what happened really was a [03:54] travesty. A conference that was supposed to be against racism became a conference that promoted [04:00] racism. It was a devolved into a notorious hate fest. There were thousands of people marching [04:07] in Durban, South Africa, saying that Zionism is like Nazism, and there were pamphlets [04:14] being distributed of the notorious forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Czarist [04:20] forgery that accuses the Jews of a plot to control the world that was being distributed, [04:24] anti-Semitic caricatures that one could have seen it of the 1930s. Der Stürmer newspaper from the [04:29] Nazis. These were being distributed as well. This was happening on the sidelines at the main [04:35] conference itself, the governmental conference. Israel was the only country singled out as an [04:40] alleged perpetrator of racism by listing the Palestinians as the only group under the rubric [04:46] of victims of racism. The NGO forum, which happened in parallel, uh, accused Israel of words that are [04:53] familiar today but were not then, which is genocide and apartheid, crimes against humanity. So [04:59] much of the venom and the hate that we're seeing today can be attributed back to what we [05:06] saw at an international, so-called anti-racism, so-called human rights conference 25 years ago. [05:12] And you mentioned that this was an NGO forum. There were, as far as I understand it, some big [05:18] household names at that forum. That's right. Amnesty and Human Rights Watch and other groups [05:24] were there. They certainly didn't intervene to stop it. They may have egged it on in certain ways. [05:30] Major foundations. The Ford Foundation, based in New York City, a major funder of so-called human [05:36] rights NGOs, a major funder of Palestinian groups, advocacy groups that have engaged in very hostile, [05:43] and inflammatory rhetoric, if not propaganda. They were funded by the Ford Foundation to go there. So [05:49] it's not just a distant thing that included Yasser Arafat and Fidel Castro, but Human Rights [05:54] Watch, based in New York City, the Ford Foundation, based in New York. They were involved. They were [05:58] complicit. So you mentioned that this was one of the first major [06:05] international forums where these terms genocide, apartheid were, were [06:12] tossed at Israel so openly. These were Soviet concepts that that [06:19] had come out of, of the Soviet bloc. Was was this something that was coordinated to kind of being [06:26] be launched as a, as a trap almost, or was this just something that came out [06:32] organically? Well, I don't think it was organic there. Certainly. You mentioned the Soviet, uh, [06:38] origins. Very important. A piece of history. I say, probably beginning in the 1950s, the Soviet Union, [06:45] which had a very sophisticated propaganda system in, uh, in Russia, in the Soviet [06:52] Union, uh, pivoted to casting Israel as a [06:58] demonic state, and it used the terms that would be uh, meaningful to Soviet [07:05] citizens, namely accusing of Israel being capitalist, colonialist and racist. And so [07:11] Zionism being called racism is something that really began in the Soviet Union, and it seeped [07:17] its way into ideological allies and supporters on the far left around the world. And indeed, [07:24] of course, most infamously in 1975. The United Nations Zionism is racism resolution, where the [07:29] Soviet Union and Arab states are seen as having worked hand in hand to uh, adopt that infamous [07:35] canard, which was thankfully repealed 16 years later in 1991. And then a decade later, a decade [07:42] later, the canard is revived at Durban. And I do think that the NGO forum did not happen by [07:48] accident. There were many groups working together. Certainly the fact that thousands were marching [07:53] in Durban was not accidental or coincidental. There were definitely major organizers. We know [07:59] that Iran played a role. There was one of their groups. It's called something like Islamic Human [08:05] Rights Commission. But I forget the exact name based on London. There was a radical, activist [08:11] there backed by Iran. So there were different, clearly different major actors involved and, and [08:18] were working in concert together. So this did not happen by accident. So Tom Lantos was there, a [08:25] sitting congressman and the only Holocaust survivor to ever serve in Congress. He came out of [08:32] it calling this the most sickening and unabashed display of hate for Jews I have seen since [08:39] the Nazi period. So, I mean, coming from him, what does that say about the [08:46] NGO ecosystem and the UN by that, by that point? [08:53] Well, it's a complete betrayal of what the UN and the human rights movement were supposed to be [08:59] about. Let's keep in mind that the United Nations is founded in 1945. Within one year, they create [09:04] the Commission on Human Rights, headed by Eleanor Roosevelt. Vice Chair René Cassin. These are iconic [09:11] human rights figures, and all of this is done in response to the Nazi atrocities that shocked the [09:16] conscience of mankind. Indeed, that is the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, [09:22] adopted in 1948, speaks expressly about being adopted in response to [09:28] the um, to the atrocities that outraged the conscience of mankind. And so the responding to [09:35] the Holocaust was a, uh, a a foundation point for the human rights movement, [09:42] including at the United Nations, and for that same movement to then become the the tools which [09:49] are used to demonize Israel and Jews, as I said, as a complete betrayal of the origins of the [09:56] human rights movement. And it should be added. There was a terrific book by James Loeffler on [10:00] Rooted Cosmopolitans, where he looks at many of the key figures, the pillars of the international [10:06] human rights movement in the postwar era after World War I, but also after World War II. [10:11] Whether it's Hersch Lauterpacht, Raphael Lemkin and others. And they weren't only Jews. Many of [10:17] these key international human rights figures, but they were Zionists. They were ardent supporters [10:24] of the idea that the Jewish people have the right, as recognized in the Balfour Declaration and the [10:29] League of Nations Mandate of 1922, to return to their ancient historic homeland. [10:36] So the founders of human rights were Zionists, and that this movement would be betrayed and hijacked [10:43] to cast Israel as the arch enemy and the ultimate violator of human rights and the ultimate racist [10:49] is a complete betrayal. In fact, at this at at this forum, a [10:56] paragraph condemning anti-Semitism, which was put forth by Jewish delegates, was voted out of [11:03] it, was voted out of this. And then the UN's own human rights chief, Mary Robinson, refuses to [11:09] forward the document to the I guess that's to the governmental forum that was going on at the same [11:15] time. And that was the first time in the organization's history that that had happened. [11:21] Why did she refuse? And did that refusal actually accomplish anything? [11:28] The language of that didn't survive, did it? Well, uh, a few things here. [11:35] One is, I believe that she refused to pass pass on the document. I'm not I'm not certain that there [11:42] was any legislative action that was meant to be taken. My understanding would probably be more [11:47] symbolic to pass it on. The NGO forum adopted what it adopted. There was the governmental forum, but [11:53] these all happened at the same place and were part of the same, um, overall [12:00] event. And the event is, is reflected in the governmental declaration, which, as I indicated, put [12:06] the Palestinians and by implication, Israel in the official document, uh, the event was, was, [12:12] um, was defined by what was happening on the streets and also by what happened at the NGO [12:18] forum. And altogether, it certainly was a hate fest as as Lantos said. Now, Mary Robinson, [12:25] uh, was informed about the anti-Semitic caricatures. She was informed about the Protocols [12:31] of the Elders of Zion being distributed and all the hate and incitement. She was in Durban. She [12:35] knew what was going on. And the NGO forum had this demonizing language, which succeeded. You know, [12:42] Gerald Steinberg, after the Durban conference, created a organization called NGO Monitor. And for [12:49] many years until today, they spoke about the Durban strategy, how NGOs had a strategy to [12:54] promote the demonizing idea, the blood libel that Israel is, in its essence, [13:01] an evil state by virtue of being racist, apartheid and murderous genocidal. So? So the words [13:08] were adopted at the NGO forum, but they it didn't end there. That's where it began. And where it [13:14] where it has led to is various United Nations mechanisms, like a commission of [13:21] inquiry, like the infamous special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, accusing Israel today of [13:26] genocide. And it should be kept in mind that this term was used 25 years [13:33] ago, long before Israel, um, ever, uh, uh, entered Gaza in the [13:40] recent war, and that Albanese actually a year before the Gaza conflict, uh, was talking about how [13:47] she had to investigate genocide as well. So uh, that was their goal. On Mary Robinson, I'll just [13:53] make one point. To her credit, she didn't pass it on at the final moment, but to her discredit. And [13:58] you mentioned Tom Lantos, the Holocaust survivor who was known as Mr. Human Rights in the [14:02] Congress. He wrote a testimonial on what happened at Durban. It's a it's [14:09] a an essay. The Durban Debacle, published, I believe, in the Fletcher World Forum uh, around 2001 [14:16] or shortly after the conference, and he details the nefarious role played by Mary Robinson. She [14:22] was the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. So that was kind of the leading individual figure [14:27] involved in this whole business and throughout the process, because the Durban conference [14:33] happened in late August or early September 2001, days before 9/11, but there was a lead up. [14:38] There was about at least half a year of a lead up of preparatory conferences, including one in [14:43] Tehran. The Asian Regional Conference was held in Tehran. They promised that Jews or Israelis would [14:48] be able to attend. In the end, they were denied visas and couldn't attend. It was at the Tehran [14:53] Conference in February 2001, where they first began adopting some of that demonizing language [14:58] in the governmental draft. Some of that came out and then went into the NGO draft in this period. [15:03] Tom Lantos documents how Mary Robinson failed to take responsibility, failed to act on the contrary. [15:09] She insisted at various points that it was right to turn a spotlight on the Israel situation. So [15:15] it's clear. According to witnesses, high level witnesses who were there on the ground that Mary [15:20] Robinson played a nefarious role in leading up to the Durban debacle. Now, [15:26] what is astounding is that in three weeks, this is again. We're taping this on September [15:33] 3rd. On Monday the 28th, the General Assembly gives up an entire day in the Trusteeship [15:40] Council. And obviously you're the expert on this. So let me know if I'm getting any of this wrong. [15:45] For a high level meeting marking 25 years since Durban. Most people [15:51] watching this have no idea that this is something that's on the calendar. I mean, in plain terms, [15:57] what's actually going on in that room and what does it say that this is still being celebrated? [16:04] Well, the Durban conference happened in 2001, and the United Nations has a practice of holding [16:10] follow up conferences to, to, uh, put new [16:17] attention on the same issues. So in the Durban context, in 2009, they held the first [16:24] follow up conference. The Durban Review Conference, which became known as Durban two, was held in [16:28] Geneva next to the UN Human Rights Council. Our organization, UN Watch, played a key role [16:35] in organizing counter events. We had Elie Wiesel and Natan Sharansky, and David Harris, many other [16:41] leading figures, on the ground for a week of events that were quite substantial, [16:48] with thousands of students and other individuals holding candles because it was Yom HaShoah. When [16:54] Ahmadinejad, the Iranian dictator, denied the Holocaust at the Durban Review conference, we were [16:59] there holding a Yom HaShoah ceremony with Elie Wiesel. So that was Durban two, and then Durban [17:06] three was the 10th anniversary. That was 2011. A meeting was held in New York, adopted a [17:10] declaration reaffirming the Durban conference. Fast forward to 2020. That was Durban four. That was [17:16] the story of 2021. That was the 20th anniversary. Again, they adopted the declaration. And I expect [17:23] that what we're going to see on September 28th in New York at the UN on Monday will be possibly [17:30] foreign ministers, but at least ambassadors, you know, the world leaders are meant to gather in New [17:34] York starting on the 22nd. That's when President Trump and other world leaders show up in New York [17:38] for a couple of days. By the 28th, I don't think many world leaders will be left, maybe a handful. [17:43] Otherwise, it may be some foreign ministers. Maybe the UN ambassadors will gather for a meeting, [17:48] will adopt a declaration reaffirming Durban and possibly some controversial aspects. Keep in mind [17:53] that Durban process is about. Primarily driven by the African countries who wanted to deal with [17:58] their issues against colonialism. They want reparations for slavery. Things like that. And I [18:02] would say that Yasser Arafat and the anti-Israel crowd, um, latched on to to the [18:09] the African led anti-racism initiative to throw Israel in the mix. [18:16] But many of the African countries are not necessarily there to promote the anti-Israel part, [18:23] but it is it is part of it. It is there. So we're calling on all countries to pull out. We have a [18:28] petition which is available at UN Watch on our website urging all countries. I should mention [18:35] that in the original Durban conference, the US and Israel pulled out in 2009, ten countries pulled [18:41] out. The US, Canada, Canada was the first. Italy. The Netherlands. Australia. The Czech Republic, [18:48] Germany. Countries that had never pulled out of a UN conference that was ten in, um, the third time, [18:54] there were 15 countries that pulled out. And the last time five years ago, 38 countries pulled out [19:00] 38. So we're hoping to see the same. We hope that leading democracies who truly care about [19:04] anti-racism will take a stand against anti-Semitism. And the Durban conference is an [19:11] iconic symbol of anti-Semitism at the United Nations and on the world stage. I was going to ask [19:17] you about the previous boycotts because from what I can tell. So there's this modalities resolution [19:22] that passed on July 28th of this year. And that's the is that the resolution that kind [19:29] of sets up the Durban 25 to to happen, because I know there were 142 [19:36] votes in favor, three against, 13 abstaining, which seems like support for it. Oh yes. I mean the, the [19:43] the the decision to hold the, the the event was made earlier but the modalities document [19:50] uh adds further development of the concept and the details. And indeed, as you said, [19:57] the vast majority of countries. Anything that says anti-racism, most UN resolutions are adopted by [20:03] consensus. Those that have some objections, maybe the US objected to certain things or others. [20:09] Still typically passed by a large majority. It's really only a very few amount of resolutions to [20:14] have some, you know, split and and here the Durban initiative on its face it's anti-racism. So [20:21] most countries don't want to take a stand even though it's tainted. And they just say, well, I'm [20:26] voting for an anti-racism initiative. And and historically we only get a minority of Western [20:32] democracies again. Last time five years ago was 38 countries. That's substantial. And we [20:39] we hope to see at least the same. And obviously, five years ago it was a different time than today [20:44] where after October 7th, we're at a time when some Western countries, the UK, Canada, Australia [20:51] have completely different policies towards Israel than they had several years ago, much more hostile. [20:57] And it's not obvious that they'll pull out. But we we are calling on democracies. If you truly [21:02] believe in anti-racism, you cannot legitimize a process, an event that [21:09] was a hate fest, which was the opposite of racism. Has there been any attempt in the [21:15] 25 years since the Durban conference to excise that language from it to [21:22] reform it? Because in these, uh, you know, in these consistent celebrations of it since [21:29] then, has there been any movement to, to change the language? Uh, sort of I believe it [21:36] was maybe ten years ago, maybe in the maybe it was in the 2011, [21:43] possibly in the 2011 10th anniversary. One of those I know there was an initiative by Italy to, [21:49] as you said, try to excise legally. I'm not sure that they can. Because the conference adopted what [21:53] it did. So it's not clear to me how you can, um, you know, undo a conference declaration. But [22:01] something creative certainly in the, in the reaffirmation and we've proposed even now, our [22:05] petition says, unless there's an express renunciation of the pernicious [22:11] elements of the Durban 2001 declaration and a renunciation of the events that happened [22:17] surrounding that event, then they should pull out. Meaning, uh, while technically you may not be able [22:23] to annul or repeal the declaration. Certainly the General Assembly, when it adopts [22:30] reaffirmation, it can it can be, you know, make [22:37] express reference to the fact that that they renounce the the hate and the racism and the [22:43] anti-Israel demonization and that they, you know, expressly, oppose it and do [22:50] not reaffirm it. That would be one practical way of doing it. And there was some initiative at the [22:56] diplomatic level more than a decade ago, as I said, by an Italian. I think it was a human rights [23:02] ambassador and nothing came of it. And to be honest, it's extremely unlikely that you'd find [23:09] even a tiny majority uh, if we get 30 or 40 [23:16] countries to to do the probably the best that they could, which is to symbolically oppose it by [23:21] not showing up. Probably the best we can get. It is obviously a shame, and it's deliberate that that [23:28] Jews who have been at the forefront of the anti-racist movement, you know, our organization, [23:32] UN Watch, was founded by Morris Abram, who was a great American civil rights leader, marched arm in [23:36] arm with Martin Luther King in 1964, sat on the UN Human Rights Committee that drafted the [23:41] convention on the Elimination of Racism. So Jews were at the forefront of anti-racism. And the fact [23:46] that that through this horrible actions in 2001 and thereafter. That Jews are [23:52] basically excluded from being part of an anti-racism process is [23:59] shameful. And so ideally, we could cure that defect. That would be nice. But you could say that the [24:05] anti-Israel elements deliberately are seeking to exclude Jews. And we've seen that in on steroids [24:11] in the past few years, since October 7th, where so-called progressive movements in the human [24:15] rights world have done everything to basically exclude Jews, to drive away Jews from from [24:22] their movement. Yeah. I think it's fair to say that Jews were uh, were one of the driving forces [24:28] between, at least in the US, the US civil rights movement. Now, since October 7th, since this global [24:34] explosion of anti-Semitism, has there been any movement in the UN, uh, structure to [24:40] address that? Uh, not really. On the contrary, I would say the United Nations [24:47] has been a key driver of the global anti-Semitism. Let's keep in mind, just a couple of weeks after [24:53] October 7th, Secretary general of the United Nations goes to the Security Council and says, yes, [25:00] I condemn the attacks of October 7th, the Hamas attacks. However, he says it is also important to [25:05] note that these attacks did not happen in a vacuum. Goes on to enumerate numerous [25:12] alleged Palestinian grievances. So you have the secretary general of the UN barely weeks after [25:16] October 7th, effectively giving legitimacy, justifying what Hamas did. They had grievances do [25:22] not happen in a vacuum. He lists all the grievances. That was shameful. It set a tone. It set [25:27] a tone. You had Navi Pillay, who was head of the commission of inquiry targeting Israel. She echoed [25:31] those terms. You have the infamous rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, on Palestine, who supports [25:37] Hamas. On October 7th, she was tweeting, saying it's just a response to oppression and you have [25:44] to see it in context. And the UN, if it's Guterres with his statements throughout [25:50] the entire war, they were echoing Hamas propaganda. The UN people like Tom Fletcher, the head of the [25:56] humanitarian agency OCHA. He was saying 14,000 babies are going to die in 48 hours. This was [26:03] a complete concoction that was manufactured. They completely distorted an item in a report that [26:10] spoke about children, not about babies. Talked about something that could happen in a year and [26:15] made it into a kind of a modern blood libel. Israel's killing 14,000 babies. So you have [26:20] numerous UN figures, especially at the Human Rights Council, whether it's the Commission of [26:25] inquiry targeting Israel, permanent 18 staff, a body with millions of dollars a year to gather [26:32] legal elements to try to indict Israel. [26:38] Francesca Albanese, you have the Human Rights Council itself 47 nation body condemning Israel. [26:44] Has the UN done anything to stop anti-Semitism? No, on the contrary, the UN has been a global purveyor [26:51] of anti-Semitism. When when these blood libels go around the world that Israel is committing [26:55] genocide, which various UN tainted agencies have have claimed, or starvation. [27:03] Then immediately Jews are called baby killers and are supporting genocide. And we've seen endless [27:09] attacks against Jews in the United States, in the UK, in the continental Europe, Canada. Horrible. [27:15] Australia. Horrible. It's been worldwide and the UN has sadly bears a lot of the blame. [27:23] I know you don't have much time, but I want to get into the rapporteurs and the secretary general, [27:29] since you just mentioned that, um, recently, Guterres told the Financial Times that many of [27:35] his own rapporteurs are, quote, totally out of control. Is that an [27:42] actual admission that he thinks that there's a problem here? I know he's the outgoing secretary [27:49] general. Is this now he's free to to talk about what's actually going on. Or is that just a [27:56] mistranslation? There is no question that it was a significant statement, and it's a [28:03] significant criticism of the rapporteurs. And there's there's different interpretations. He [28:09] was asked the context was the Financial Times had a very long interview with him recently. He was [28:15] asked specifically about allegations of anti-Israel bias at the UN, and he and he began [28:20] his answer by saying, look, the UN is a very large organization. There are multiple entities, he said. [28:26] We have independent figures, we have these rapporteurs. Many of them are totally out of [28:32] control from the point of view of the secretariat. Then he said, if you ask about the Secretary [28:37] General's office and the secretariat, which means the bureaucracy that he oversees, he said there I [28:43] categorically reject. There's no bias. So, you know, there's two interpretations. He said that he said [28:50] the rapporteurs are totally out of control and that's what he said. And then then his spokesman, [28:57] a day or two later tried to walk it back, said, no, it's not what he meant. He wasn't talking about [29:00] the content. He meant the process. Namely, I don't control them. Not that they're out of control. Even [29:07] if you accept the alternative reading as Mona Ali Khalil, an anti-Israel activist who wrote [29:14] on the pro-EU and apologist website, PassBlue the other day. She said even, even in that reading, [29:20] he was asked about bias. And his first answer is, well, you got these rapporteurs and they're not me, [29:25] right? Even in the alternative reading that I don't control them. Then he said, but me and our [29:29] secretariat, we're not biased. So as she said, he appeared to throw them under the bus. Now, if he's [29:35] talking about rapporteurs being biased on Israel, who is he talking about? Well, at least a [29:41] dozen, but at least one. Okay. It's Francesca Albanese who every five minutes is parroting the [29:48] latest Hamas blood libel, as she says Hamas is are not cutthroats. They are a political party. They [29:55] were elected in the most democratic election. She says America subjugated by the Jewish lobby. And [30:00] we know that. That Guterres, even though he bears a lot of blame, as I said, we know that there's no [30:05] love lost between them. In fact, the US special envoy on anti-Semitism, former one Professor [30:12] Deborah Lipstadt, the great historian, told Jewish Insider and others that on the sidelines of the [30:19] 2024 Munich Security Conference, Guterres told her twice Albanese is a horrible person, a [30:25] horrible person. That was published in under the testimony of historian Deborah [30:32] Lipstadt. U.S. special envoy. Second, when the spokesman was asked, I think it was several months [30:38] ago that might have been last year was asked about Albanese. He said, you know, there's many [30:44] things that she says that we don't agree with. So that was a significant distancing from that. It's [30:49] not sufficient okay. We want way more. Ban Ki-moon condemned Richard Falk when [30:56] Albanese predecessor supported the 9/11 conspiracy theory and justified somehow made some [31:02] weird comments about the Boston Marathon bombings, which were done by jihadist terrorists. And he, I [31:08] think, alleged that the US or Israel were profiting by it or connected. Ban Ki-moon [31:13] condemned him. He he condemned him for his preposterous remarks in the council. And then in a [31:18] letter that his office wrote to me. So, uh, Guterres hasn't done that, but clearly he [31:25] doesn't like her. as you said, maybe he feels a bit more liberated months before he's leaving office. [31:31] Any self-respecting UN human rights expert would have resigned by now. When you have the secretary [31:36] general, clearly distancing himself, telling someone you're a horrible person twice. And she's [31:42] complained about it in some interviews when she was sanctioned on July 9th, 2025. A day later, it [31:48] was, I believe. Al Jazeera had an interview with you or Middle East Eye. They're pretty much the [31:52] same thing she was asked about. Has Guterres spoken to you? She said, no, never, never. He never spoke to [31:57] me. Not now, not before. And I don't think after. So clearly they don't like each other. Um, [32:04] but he, he bears responsibility because although he distanced himself, he never specifically [32:10] condemned her. Something that his predecessor, Ban Ki-moon did do. It's anybody who's been [32:16] following your social media feeds lately which have been extraordinarily entertaining. Would know [32:22] that now Francesca Albanese has threatened to sue you for defamation. Is that true? [32:29] Um, so, like, is that something that she could even do? I know you've said that you welcome that, [32:35] because that would bring out all of this in, in into the light of day. Well, yes. I mean, you know, if [32:40] she's watching, I would say, Madame Albanese, please go ahead and sue me. You know, your tweet claimed [32:47] outright defamation. Please go ahead and sue me. Make my day. Because we have a record. The [32:54] record is voluminous. It is at least four years. And it actually goes back a decade of [33:01] making remarks that were condemned by the Canadian government. The Canadian special envoy on [33:07] anti-Semitism France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, the UK, at least half a dozen other [33:12] countries. No other UN rapporteur in a history has been criticized and condemned for Holocaust [33:18] inversion, anti-Semitism, ethical breaches amounting to a breach of the UN Code of Conduct [33:25] requiring her to resign. French Prime Minister called for a UN human rights official to resign. [33:30] The French foreign minister called for her to resign. So, you know, all of those are facts. And she [33:36] can complain that Elon Musk has to police the X platform because I'm [33:43] defaming her. And the defamation that she claimed was that I called her the de facto spokesperson [33:49] for Hamas at the UN. And that's exactly what she is. And I'll say it again. She is Hamas's de facto. [33:56] Francesca Albanese is the de facto spokesperson for Hamas at the UN. You [34:03] have joked that you're running for next secretary general. That's not true, are you? Would [34:10] you? Well, I didn't I didn't say it was I said I have to consider it and I have not [34:17] put in any candidature, um, to be to be fully honest, in order to be elected secretary [34:23] general, you need the approval of some of the most brutal regimes, which include China and Russia. So [34:29] it's a very hard to get someone who takes a principled position, which we at UN Watch do [34:35] defend the UN charter. We do call balls and strikes. We call out abusers. Secretary general, uh, [34:41] doesn't do that. The Guterres gives a free pass to China, gives a free pass to Vladimir Putin. If [34:46] he's not railing against Israel, he's railing against the climate. Um, so, you know, if I were ever [34:52] to run for secretary general, it would be for the purpose of putting on record what the problems of [34:59] the UN are, whether it's the rapporteurs run amok, whether it's dictatorships taking over human [35:04] rights bodies, the Islamic Republic of Iran getting itself elected to numerous women's rights [35:08] bodies, someone's got to spotlight this. Someone's got to put this on the agenda. So if I ever were [35:15] to run, it would be for the purpose only of putting things on the agenda in a global way. For [35:22] somebody who's listening at home, who wants to get involved, how can they do that? Can they sign your [35:28] petition directly? Yes. The best way to get involved. Go to unwatch.org. Sign up on our website. [35:34] You get latest updates when we have campaigns like the Durban 25 petition urging all [35:40] democracies to stay away from what is a global hate fest. Hillel Neuer, thank you so much for [35:47] joining us today. Thank you for having me. [35:54] Here's what stayed with me. I went into this thinking of Durban as an episode, a bad conference, [36:00] something that happened, embarrassed everyone and got buried under September 11th, a week later. But [36:07] that's not what Hillel describes. He describes a launch, the vocabulary we now argue [36:14] about every single day apartheid, genocide, crimes against humanity. The whole indictment was [36:20] ratified at an anti-racism conference in 2001, and has been in continuous use [36:27] ever since. Not as a description of events, as a fixed conclusion. Looking for events to support [36:34] it. Albanese was preparing to investigate genocide before there was a Gaza war to [36:41] investigate. The term was already there. It was there in 2001. What changed was the footage you [36:48] could staple to it, and there's a line running backward from Durban. Zionism as racism doesn't [36:53] start in South Africa, it starts in Soviet propaganda in the 1950s, becomes a UN resolution [37:00] in 1975, gets repealed in 1991, and then comes back ten years later in a cricket stadium [37:07] in Durban wearing the language of human rights. But the part I keep turning over is who built the [37:13] thing that got hijacked? The UN creates its Human Rights Commission in 1946, one year in [37:20] with Eleanor Roosevelt chairing it and René Cassin as her deputy, explicitly as an answer to [37:26] the Nazis, the men who drafted the legal architecture, Hersch Lauterpacht and Raphael Lemkin, [37:33] the man who coined the word genocide, were Jews, and many of them were Zionists. UN Watch [37:39] itself was founded by Morris Abram, an American civil rights lawyer who marched with Martin [37:45] Luther King in 1964 and sat on the committee that drafted the Convention Against Racial [37:50] Discrimination. The people who wrote the instrument are now the only ones it plays against. [37:56] Neuer calls that a betrayal, and I don't think that's too strong a word for it. So what's [38:01] actually available here? He was straight about it. You're not going to repeal a conference [38:06] declaration. What you can do is not show up. In 2001, two countries walked the US and Israel. In [38:13] 2009, ten. In 2011, 15. Five years ago, 38. UN Watch is running a [38:20] petition now asking democracies to make it more than 38 on September 28th, or at least to demand [38:26] that any reaffirmation explicitly renounce what happened in Durban. That's at unwatch.org. [38:34] And here's what I'm taking out of this one. When a phrase arrives fully formed and everybody [38:39] suddenly knows it, it has a birthday. Someone drafted it. Someone voted on it. Somebody [38:46] funded the trip. Find out when. Because a word that was written before the event it describes [38:52] isn't a finding. It's a verdict waiting for a file. You can find Hillel's work at [38:59] UN Watch, and the Durban 25 petition is there to follow him on X. His feed has been [39:05] extraordinarily entertaining lately. Links are in the description. If this one changed what you hear [39:11] when somebody says apartheid, genocide, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, do me a [39:18] favor, leave the show a rating and a review on Apple or Spotify or wherever you're listening [39:24] right now. It's the single biggest thing that helps new people find us. And if you're not [39:29] already subscribe, hit the notification bell and follow HonestReporting on X, Instagram, [39:36] TikTok and Facebook. I'm Ben Chertoff. This is The Honest Take, and we'll see you next time.
