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U.N. Watch Blasts Human Rights Council for Defining Practice of Judaism as 'War Crime'

March 28, 2018

U.N. Watch, a Geneva-based NGO that monitors the United Nations, blasted the U.N. Human Rights Council during the council's March session for "defining the practice of Judaism as a war crime."

In an address to the international body, U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer criticized the council for its numerous anti-Israel resolutions when it has taken up so few against other countries who are known human rights violators, such as China and Saudi Arabia.

Neuer's remarks came while member countries were considering a blacklist of countries who do business in Israel. As part of the debate, some parties disputed the boundaries of Israel, and many countries and groups took swipes at the country.

South Africa's delegate compared treatment of Palestinians to that of apartheid in her own home country. Representatives from North Korea and the Palestinian Liberation Organization also condemned Israel.

"Israel continues to murder, to pursue ethnic cleansing, to grab natural resources and land, erect barriers, walls. It's been cutting down trees, demolishing houses, desecrating religious sites," the PLO representative said.

Neuer responded to the body by mentioning how much time and effort they spend criticizing Israel as opposed to true human rights violators.

"Mr. President, if you add up this session's country reports and resolutions, there are zero on China, zero on Saudi Arabia, and zero on most other countries, two on North Korea, three on Iran, and then 12 on Israel," Neuer said. "At a time when much of the Middle East is sinking from Syrian genocide, ISIS sexual enslavement of Yazidi girls, and deadly civil wars in Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and Sinai, by what logic or morality does this council devote so much of its time to singling out the region's only democracy? Why is the United Nations obsessed with scapegoating the world's only Jewish state?"

"I ask: Why is the United Nations defining the practice of Judaism as a war crime?" Neuer said.