‘Where are your Jews?’: Neuer speech goes viral
UN Watch director Hillel Neuer’s dramatic rebuttal of a UN Human Rights Council report accusing Israel of ‘apartheid’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ has now gone viral. ‘Where are your Jews?’ he asked the Arab states behind the report. A stunned silence descended on the chamber. It was perhaps the first time that the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab states had been mentioned in a world forum. Here is a transcript of the debate at the Times of Israel.
Hillel Neuer
UN Watch (Executive Director Hillel Neuer):
Mr. President, let me begin by putting the following on the record:
Everything we just heard — from the world’s worst abusers of human
rights, of women’s rights, of freedom of religion, of the press, of
assembly, of speech — is absolutely false; and, indeed, Orwellian.
Today’s report does not consider Israelis to
be deserving of human rights — consistent with the approach of this
council, where today’s notorious agenda item against Israel completely
ignores their human rights.
Over the weekend, President Abbas announced he
was giving his highest medal to Rima Khalaf, who resigned from the
Economic and Social Commission of Western Asia, a Beirut-based UN agency
of 18 Arab states, after Secretary General Guterres rightly instructed
her to remove an absurd report which accused Israel of “apartheid.”
Mr. President, why is Mr. Abbas celebrating a
report written by the notorious Richard Falk, after his own Palestinian
Mission here, tried in 2010, to remove Mr. Falk on the basis that he was
“a partisan of Hamas,” as we know from WikiLeaks?
The accusation against Israel is absurd. Israel’s 1.5 million Arabs…
[Interruption with objections by Palestinians, Egypt, and Pakistan.]
President gives UN Watch back the floor.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Israel’s 1.5 million Arabs, whatever
challenges they face, enjoy full rights to vote and to be elected in the
Knesset, they work as doctors and lawyers, they serve on the Supreme
Court.
Now I’d like to ask the members of that
commission, that commissioned that report, the Arab states from which we
just heard. Egypt, Iraq, and the others:
How many Jews live in your countries? How many Jews lived in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco?
Once upon a time, the Middle East was full of Jews.
Algeria had 140,000 Jews. Algeria, where are your Jews?
Egypt used to have 75,000 Jews. Where are your Jews?
Syria, you had tens of thousands of Jews. Where are your Jews?
Iraq, you had over 135,000 Jews. Where are your Jews?
Mr. President, where is the apartheid?
Why is there a UN commission on the Middle
East that does not include Israel? From the 1960s and the ‘70s they
refuse to include Israel. Where is the apartheid, Mr. President?
Mr. President, why are we meeting today on an agenda item singling out only one state, the Jewish state, for targeting.
Where is the apartheid, Mr. President?
UNHRC chamber goes silent.
One Comment
They got taken down with their pants on.