Founded in 1993 in Geneva, Switzerland, to monitor the compliance of the United Nations with its charter,
UN Watch is a zealously pro-Israel non-governmental organization (NGO) with consultative status to
the UN Economic and Social Council, the UN organ that "serves as the central forum for discussing
international economic and social issues, and for formulating policy recommendations addressed to Member
States and the United Nations system."
Affiliated with the American Jewish Committee, the former publisher of the neoconservative flagship
magazine Commentary and founder of the Transatlantic
Institute, UN Watch serves as a quasi-watchdog group aimed at criticizing the often one-sided,
anti-Israel views expressed by some members of the UN Human Rights Council. However, some observers
argue that the group is itself biased when it comes to the rights situation in the Middle East. In
his Guardian blog, the commentator Ian Williams argued that UN Watch has been as "guilty
of hypocrisy" as some Human Rights Council members. He wrote: "Anyone carrying a hypocrisy
detector through the UN would be distracted by its continuous beeping, as one would expect in places
filled with politicians and diplomats. But passing UN Watch's office would set it beeping as well.
If the organization could point to a single occasion when it had condemned manifest Israeli transgressions
of the human rights of Palestinians, it would give itself a secure platform from which to criticize
the human rights council. UN Watch rightly criticizes Sudan's refusal to let in a human rights council
delegation into Darfur. But then how, with a straight face, can it avoid criticizing Israel for refusing
to allow in rapporteurs from the same council?" (April 4, 2007).
UN Watch director Hillel Neuer drew much attention to himself and his organization in March 2007,
when he used his opportunity to give testimony to rail against the supposedly anti-Semitic council. "In
truth, the despots who run this council," opined Neuer, "couldn't care less about Palestinians
or any human rights. They seek to demonize Israeli democracy, to delegitimize the Jewish state, to
scapegoat the Jewish people. They also seek something else—to distort and pervert the very language
and idea of human rights."
The president of the council at the time, the ambassador from Mexico, Luis Alfonso De Alba, responded: "For
the first time in this session I will not express thanks for that statement. I shall point out to the
distinguished representative of the organization that just spoke ... if you'd kindly listen to me, I
am sorry but I am not in a position to thank you for your statement. I should mention that I will not
tolerate any similar statements in the council. The way in which the members of this council are referred
to, and indeed the way in which the council was referred to—all of this is inadmissible. In the memory
of the persons you referred to, founders of the Human Rights Commission, and for the good of human
rights, I would urge you in any future statement to observe some minimum proper conduct and language,
otherwise any statement you make in similar tones to those used today will be taken out of the records" (Testimony
at the UN, March 23, 2007).
Commenting on the episode, Williams wrote in his blog: "Last week, the ill-advised president
of the council, Mexican diplomat Luis Alfonso De Alba, who usually politely and formulaically thanks
the 'distinguished representatives' for their remarks, made a point of saying that he was not thanking
the UN Watch representative, Hillel Neuer—although, to be fair, he did still call him 'distinguished.' ... Whatever
the reason, De Alba played right into his hands. The martyrdom of Hillel Neuer is now played up in
all the usual suspect neocon places, from the Wall Street Journal's editorial page to the New
York Sun and Canada's National Post. The video has been circulated widely, with a call
for donations, and the usual cluckings about the UN. UN Watch will not be getting a cheque from me.
Not being thanked is not an attack on human rights. Being threatened with censorship in the future
could be. But UN Watch refers to this speech as being censored. 'Banned: the speech the UN refused
to hear,' shouts the email that UN Watch sent out. Which is odd, because the clip it is linking to
on YouTube actually comes from a UNTV webcast, which it acknowledges when it invites people to download
the Realplayer version" (April 4, 2007).
UN Watch has criticized those who have pointed to the one-sided nature of the "war on terror," in
particular Islamic countries that have complained about how the "war" has been aimed mainly
at Muslims. In a commentary about preparatory meetings in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2007 for a global
conference on racism, UN Watch took aim at Pakistan, which was representing the Organization of the
Islamic Conference at the meetings, for its criticism of "religious hatred, racial profiling in
the fight against terrorism, and the rejection of diversity and multiculturalism." UN Watch rightly
pointed out that in many Muslim countries there is little acceptance of "diversity," but
then went on to say: "Pakistan—a country wherein gang rape is a court-ordered punishment for women
who commit the crime of speaking to the wrong tribesman—is, of course, directing this charge [of rejection
of diversity] against Western countries, and them alone. Countries like the United States, England,
Holland—where anyone can pretty much do as they please—are the ones accused here of 'rejection of diversity
and multiculturalism'" (see "Durban Review: Day Three," UN Watch, August 23, 2006).
Neuer was himself the apparent victim of profiling during a harrowing experience in late 2007 at a
restaurant outside Boston when he was arrested at gunpoint after employees and customers called police
because they were concerned that Neuer was dangerous. Police had been looking for a murder suspect
in the area, and Neuer's behavior seemed strange and erratic. Reported the Boston Herald (November
6, 2007): "Chris Robbins, the restaurant owner, said his employees told him Neuer asked for a
cab five times, changed into a suit and darted out to next-door CVS pharmacy halfway through his pizza.
'I don't think there was any fault on our part,' he said. 'He was pacing back and forth up and down
the restaurant at enormous speeds. He was walking in and out of the restaurant.' One pizza worker said
Neuer looked nervous and was 'constantly fixing himself and looking around,' a police report states." Charges
against Neuer were eventually dropped, and UN Watch released a statement that said in part: "Mr.
Neuer was an innocent man who went to a restaurant in Needham, and was traumatized and almost killed
as a result" (UN Watch, November 6, 2007).
UN Watch was founded by Morris Abram, a former U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations
who died in 2000. According to his UN Watch bio, "Ambassador Abram served five American presidents—John
F. Kennedy, as general counsel of the Peace Corps; Lyndon B. Johnson, as U.S. representative to the
UN Commission on Human Rights and as co-chairman of the planning session of the 1965 White House Conference
on Civil Rights; Jimmy Carter, as chairman of the president's Commission for the Study of the Ethical
Problems of Medicine; Ronald Reagan, as vice chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; and George
Bush, as U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva."
Like many Israel supporters in and out of the United States, Abram was particularly concerned about
a supposed anti-Israel UN bias. In his July 14, 1999 testimony to the House Committee on International
Relations, Abram listed a number of UN actions that he claimed pointed to a pattern of unfair treatment
toward Israel. His allegations included: (1) "Israel is the only state whose alleged violations
of human rights occupy a single agenda item at the annual UN Commission on Human Rights. The violations
that occur in the remaining 184 Member States are examined collectively under another single agenda
item. Only Israel has its name prominently targeted;" (2) "[Israel] is the only state whose
aggressors in three wars have not been challenged by the Security Council. It is the only state out
of 185 UN Member States excluded from membership in any regional group, rendering it ineligible to
serve on the Security Council, the UN Commission on Human Rights, and other important UN decision-making
bodies;" and (3) "It is the only state investigated by a Special Rapporteur with an open-ended
mandate that presupposes Israel's human rights violations. Special Rapporteurs for all other countries
have mandates of limited duration with objective fact-finding missions."
However, unlike much of the rightist pro-Israel lobby in the United States, including the neoconservatives,
Abram actively promoted continued U.S. support for the United Nations, arguing in his 1999 House testimony
that UN Watch "categorically supports the UN as an indispensable institution. The United States
should pay its past dues to the UN as a matter of national honor and in recognition of the UN's importance.
In spite of the UN's flaws, it is inconceivable that the United States withhold support from the only
truly global organization in such an interdependent world." He added: "I recognize and take
into full account the vagaries and contradictions in international diplomacy. I accept the primacy
of realpolitik in international relations, and that some of the mistreatment of Israel within the UN
may be attributed to such factors. However, the accumulation of attacks against Israel within the UN,
as now occurs against no other State, cannot be simply dismissed as politics."
In recognition of UN Watch's work, Secretary-General Kofi Annan wrote in a 1997 letter to Abram, quoted
on the UN Watch website: "I deeply appreciate the valuable work performed by UN Watch. I believe
that informed and independent evaluation of the United Nations' activities will prove a vital source
as we seek to adapt the Organization to the needs of a changing world. I can promise you that I will
pay close attention to your observations and view in the years ahead."
Under Neuer, UN Watch seems to have increasingly taken on the mantle of many hardline critics of the
international body. In a September 29, 2006 press release, the group argued: "This afternoon in
Geneva the UN Human Rights Council will return to condemnations of Israel, with the presentation of
new reports as mandated by prior resolutions that were criticized as one-sided by Western democracies
and human rights groups. 'Sadly, the constructive part of this Council session—reports by the Council's
40 independent monitors on human rights situations around the world—is now over,' said Hillel Neuer,
executive director of UN Watch. ... 'Anyone observing the Council's agenda over the next week might easily
mistake it for a meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.'"
In a 2006 "Take Action" posting on its website, UN Watch asked its readers to sign on to
an e-mail petition urging the ouster of Iran from the United Nations. Suggested content for the e-mail
was: "It's time to tell Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that his promotion of hatred and
destruction—his repeated denial of the Holocaust, his explicit incitement to eliminate Israel, his
mad pursuit of nuclear weapons in defiance of the international community—carries a price. A government
that systematically denies one genocide while actively seeking another stands in contempt of the principles
of the United Nations."
Although largely focused on issues in the Middle East and anti-Israel bias in the United Nations,
UN Watch also addresses other international topics. It has posted reports about human rights in Cuba,
promoted stronger UN action in Darfur, and critiqued the formulation of the new UN Human Rights Council,
which according to Neuer has proven to be a "profound disappointment." In a September 7,
2006 editorial for the International Herald Tribune, Neuer argued that among the new council's
many failures is that it has "provided further encouragement to Islamic extremists by adopting
a resolution against 'defamation of religions'—a thinly veiled endorsement of the fury of violence
that followed the Danish cartoon controversy and an attempt to silence Middle East dissidents by equating
democracy with blasphemy" (International Herald Tribune, September 7, 2006).
Although it advocates a "just application of UN Charter principles," UN Watch's preoccupation
with Middle East affairs is almost exclusively focused on anti-Semitism and violations committed by
Islamic extremists. On November 1, 2007, UN Watch published "United Nations and Anti-Semitism:
2004-2007 Report Card."
Among the 13 joint letters and statements posted on its website between April 2004 and September 2006,
nearly half were concerned with issues of anti-Semitism and threats to Israel. Not one mentioned alleged
abuses of Israeli security forces in the Occupied Territories. Why this selectivity? Because according
to UN Watch "the disproportionate attention and unfair treatment applied by the UN toward Israel
over the years offers an object lesson (though not the only one) in how due process, equal treatment,
and other fundamental principles of the UN Charter are often ignored or selectively upheld."
