June 27, 2024 • 33 mins
UNRWA and the UNHRC. These are two organs of the United Nations that are supposed to uphold the UN's values, as enshrined in its charter. Instead, UNRWA has become a hotbed for terrorism sympathizers and UNHRC—a tool of lawfare wielded by authoritarian states to target Israel while shielding themselves from criticism. Has the UN failed in its mandate? Is their hope for the organization, or are countries better off withdrawing from it and/or its organs? Learn more through my interview with Daniel Smith of UN Watch, a Geneva-based watchdog that seeks to hold the United Nations accountable.
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(00:00):
The United Nations is a hallmark ofthe post World War II liberal international order
established by the Allied powers, anorder that many say isn't declined today.
Is the United Nations today living upto its commitment of upholding those liberal international
norms that it is supposed to uphold, or has it been hijacked by authoritarian
(00:22):
states into becoming the sort of cudgelwith which those states can beat Western Powers
and Israel with the same values thatthey themselves did not respect. You're listening
to Strategic Wisdom with Andrew Jose.I'm Andrew Jose, a Washington, DC
based security policy analyst and news reporter, bringing you unique analyzes and commentary on
(00:47):
issues in international relations, security policy, and war. Joining me today is
Daniel Smith of un Watch, awatstop dedicated to holding the United Nations account
of to its founding principles. DanielSmith is the director of Advocacy for un
(01:40):
Watch. Un Watch is a Genevabased non government organization accredited by the UN.
The NGO state ad mission is tomonitor the performance of the United Nations
by the yardstake of its own charter. U and Watch has been active in
denouncing human rights abuses across the worldworld in areas such as, but not
(02:01):
limited to, the Democratic Republic ofthe Congo, Darfur, the People's Republic
of China, Cuba, Russia,and Venezuela. You and Watch often uses
its allocated time at the UNHRC toallow for dissidents and human rights activists to
speak and challenge the authoritarian states thattend to populate the Human Rights Council.
(02:25):
Daniel Smith, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Andrew.
It's really great to be here,happening to be on. But to start
off, Daniel, can you explainto the audience the history of You and
Watch when it was founded, whywas it founded, the historical event that
prompted its founding, and the workthe organization does today. Ewan Watch was
(02:46):
founded in nineteen ninety three by MorrisAbram, who is a pioneer of the
civil rights movements in the US andalso one of the leaders of the American
Jewish community. The last official rolethat he held in his career was as
the US Ambassador to the UN andJipa, where he was the ambassador at
the time to the UN Commission onHuman Rights, and in that post he
(03:07):
saw all that was wrong with humanrights at the UN, that dictators had
taken over the show and were shieldingtheir own abuses, and that Israel was
the main focus and scapegoat and themain target of criticism at the UN.
So he decided in nineteen ninety threeto remain in Geneva rather than moving back
(03:30):
to the US and to found UNWatch, to monitor the UN by the
standard of its own charter. Andthe two areas of his work that were
most important to him, basically theuniversal his work as a civil rights leader,
and also the particular his work asa leader in the Jewish community in
(03:52):
America became really our two points offocus at UN Watch. As I said,
our mission is to hold the UNto the standard of its charter,
and we do that basically in thetwo areas where the UN is falling short
the most. That's where dictatorships haveundo influence within the UN system and shield
(04:16):
their own abuses, and Israel andthe selective focused against Israel and bias against
Israel within the UN system. Uand Watch has criticized recently the United Nations
Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugeesin the Near East UNRA. What are
(04:36):
the key issues that this organization hasthat you and Watch believes we should all
be concerned about. For the lastdecade, U and Watch has been putting
out reports on UNRA. Our methodologyis very simple. We look at the
public social media profiles of individuals thatidentify as staff members of UNRA, and
(04:57):
what we found has been consistently shocking. There's replete support for terrorism and anti
semitism pretty much across the board everywherewe look. We've put together a total
of I believe it's thirteen reports nowthat we've issued and every time, basically
(05:18):
we're a headache for Anuran. Theyevery time we released one of these reports,
it causes a lot of backlash forthem amongst their donor states, and
they they tried to tarnish us inour reputation and instead of taking care of
the problem, you know what,you think an organization that's you know,
(05:39):
has any kind of oversight would bedoing, would be investigating and looking through
their entire organization and firing any individualsthat support terrorism. Instead, you know,
at one point, they issued asocial media guideline training guide to all
of their teachers which taught them howto make their profiles private. So instead
(06:00):
of actually taking care of the problemremoving terror supporters from their staff, they
just teach them how to hide theevidence. So, like I said,
we've been doing this over the pastdecade, but everything really escalated since October
seventh, and especially since January ofthis year. In early January, we
released a new report on findings arounda public telegram group which comprised of three
(06:29):
thousand Unread teachers in Gaza, andon October seventh, the group was replete
with support for the terror attacks thathad taken place. When we released this,
it caused a major problem for ANI, as all of our reports do,
and UNREAD chief Felipe Lazzarini announced thathe would be commissioning in a so
(06:54):
called independent review to look into theneutrality of aff At HONRA. Basically this
was to push back against any allegationswe had made and to as he said,
quote unquote, reassured Donor States.Then just a couple of weeks later,
(07:14):
Israel notified NRA that it had evidencethat twelve of its staff members had
participated in the October seventh attack.So this caused real shock waves really across
the world and especially in unrad DonorStates. One by one over a dozen
undred donor states paused funding froze fundingfor the organization as a result of these
(07:40):
revelations, and since then it's comeout that you know, somewhere around ten
percent of all Honora of staff inGaza are members of Hamas, and that
number is actually even deceiving a bitbecause only men can be members of Hamas,
so it's something closer to twenty percentof all men staff members of are
(08:07):
members of Lamas. But anyway,the real problem with UNRA is not like
this is all just a downstream problemthe support for terrorism. There's a much
deeper problem at the core of theorganization, which is which revolves around the
(08:28):
right of return that they believe Palestinianrefugees have. And this goes back to
the founding of the organization and whythere's one refugee organization for Palestinians and one
un refugee organization for the entire restof the world, and the problems that
creates and fuel in the conflict today. Interesting, what would you say are
(08:50):
the factors contributing to UNRA having somany members who sympathize with or have allegedly
worked with terrorist groups such as Hamasand the whole lot. Would you say
these are institutional factors or failure inoversight, or this thing is being deliberately
(09:11):
baked into how UNRA operates. Iwould go back to the core issue with
NRA being its mandate and that itis seen to protect the rate of return
that Palestinians claim that they have sounder the UNRA definition of refugees, seventy
(09:33):
percent of the population of a gazaare considered refugees. Right They've been living
in what ANRA calls refugee camps sincenineteen forty eight nineteen forty nine. Today,
these refugee camps are not what anyyou know, average person would think
of when they hear the word refugeecamp. They're cities, they're urban areas,
their neighborhoods. But you know thereal problem of why we see so
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many members or staff members of HONRAthat are Hamas members today it goes back
to this. You know, forover seventy five years that HONRA has been
telling Gazans that their home is notin Gaza. It's been telling them that
you're a refugee and one day youwill return to where your ancestor where your
(10:22):
grandfather, where your great grandfather camefrom. So don't get comfortable in Gaza.
You have to go back. Youhave to return. Now. This
message is exactly what leads to somethinglike October seventh, where you have thousands
of armed, violent terrorists brossing theborder and what they see as a return
(10:46):
to their home. So it's nocoincidence that Honra is full of Hamas terrorists.
It's it's really it's part of it'spart of what Honra is and what
it teaches to Palestinians that created thisproblem. You're listening to Strategic Wisdom with
Andrew whose be sure to follow strategicWisdom on Twitter and Instagram at strat Wisdom.
(11:13):
That is s t r A tw I s d o m at
strat Wisdom. With that out ofthe way, let's get back to our
conversation with un Watch advocacy director DanielSmith. How does you and Watch believe
that UNRAS should be reformed? Shouldthe organization be reformed or should it be
(11:37):
abolished altogether in favor of the existingrefugee organization in the United Nations. We
believe it's not possible to reform onHonor needs to be abolished and replaced.
We We don't advocate for it tofor its services to disappear overnight. We
understand that its services, you know, underprovided. It's government likes services to
(12:03):
Palestinians and Gaza. Someone needs tobe providing these services, someone needs to
be running the schools, but itshould not be a UN agency for seventy
five years. Everywhere else in theworld, local governments are responsible for providing
government services. This is also thecase with UNHCR, the other UN refugee
(12:26):
agency which serves all other populations inthe world. UNHCR does not run schools,
it doesn't run entire medical systems.It it relies on host governments to
provide these services. HONRA is anexception, both in Gaza and then also
in Lebanon and Syria and Jordan andthe West Bank and each Jerusalem, UNRA
(12:52):
provides provides government services instead of thelocal governments. So that's that's something that
we don't see as as sustainable oracceptable, and we think all services that
are provided by UN needs to betransitioned eventually to local governments providing those services.
Now, we don't know what governmentis going to arise in Gaza at
(13:16):
this point after from US, butwe think already now in the immediate term,
Honorous services can be transferred to otheragencies that operate in Gaza, like
the World Food Program, like UNISEEand others. They could be providing the
(13:39):
services that UNER provides. So Honorand Gaza should be replaced by at first
other agencies and in the long runby governments, by a government that will
provide those government services. So ideallya Palestinian administration that it would be friendly
towards in the future, or acombination of the Israeli government and Palestinian officials.
(14:07):
Well, I mean, this isobviously a very complex topic. We're
not experts on you know, whatthe future of Gaza governments governance should look
like. So we're not going todictate what we believe it should be.
But we can't say we believe itshould not be Hamas and it also should
not be UNRUH. So someone besidesthem, What is the role of dark
(14:33):
money in unra's activities and its approachto the Israel Palestinian conflict, and who
are the main sources of dark money, if any, of the dark money
that flows into the organization's coffers,and does it actually play a major role
in corruption that goes on in thePalestinian territories. You know, I almost
(14:54):
wish I could say that there wasdark money at play here, because it
would make explaining this whole situation somuch easier. But the sad reality is
that this money is about as lightas it can be. It's it's coming
from Western taxpayers. Last year,in twenty twenty three, the US donated
four hundred and twenty two million dollarsto UNRAP, Germany donated two hundred and
(15:18):
twelve million dollars, the EU onehundred and twenty million. This is taxpayer
money that it's it's it's just sooutrageous that it's going to this organization that
that is supporting Hamas's terror and Gaza. Now I can speculate, you know,
(15:39):
as to maybe why governments are arefunding UNRA and what nefarious forces there
are that you know, behind thescenes, behind closed doors. Maybe you
know enemies of Israel that have traderelations with these Western government it's you know,
(16:00):
like Pater Saudi Arabia, you know, whichever others. They might say,
you want our oil, you wantto do business with us, you
want our investments from us? Howmuch are you donating to UNRA, show
us that you support our causs thatcould be happening, that probably is happening.
But the truth is the money that'sgoing directly to NRA, it's coming
(16:23):
from Western taxpayers, and it's Ithink one of the biggest moral failings of
the West today that this funding iscontinuing, though of course the US has
frozen for at least the next year, until at least March twenty twenty five,
so that's encouraging, but still theamount of Western dollars that are going
(16:45):
to UNRA is a moral outrage.Moving away from UNRA. How bad is
this situation with the Human Rights Councilvisa vi anti Israel bias currently, Yeah,
the the Human Rights Council, it'sa very bad situation. The Council
(17:06):
has ten agenda items every time itmeets three times a year. Agenda Item
four is to look at country atabuses of human rights and countries all over
the world except for Israel, andAgenda Item seven is focused specifically only on
Israel. So Israel is the onlycountry in the world that has a standing
agenda item that's addressed every single timethe Human Rights Council meets. So this
(17:36):
alone is enough to you know,just look at the Human Rights Council and
say that this h you know,this is a terrible council. But then
you look at the composition of theof the Council and the percentage of members
that are non democracies, and thatthemselves are some of the worst human rights
abusers in the world, like Chinaas a member of the Human Rights Council,
(18:00):
and you realize that what's happening hereis really dictatorships try to gain as
much influence within the system as theycan to shield their own abuses. There's
never been a resolution against China theHuman Rights counsul right, and every year
there are numerous resolutions against Israel.Since the founding of the Council in two
(18:21):
thousand and six, there have beenone hundred and eight resolutions targeting Israel.
The next highest amount for any countryis Syria, which received forty four.
So the Human Rights Council's really nota council focused on human rights. It's
a council focused on shielding human rightsabuses and using one country, Israel,
(18:44):
as the scapegoat. Speaking about singlingout Israel as a scapegoat, one thing
that grabbed the news since the startof the decade has been something known as
the pill A Commission. Could youexplain to the audience about the Pila Commission
what it is and what makes ita troublesome aspect of the UN now?
(19:06):
Sure, so, from time totime, the Human Rights Council commissions what's
called a Commission of Inquiry to investigatehuman rights abuses in a particular country situation.
Until twenty twenty one, when thepil A Commission was established in the
wake of the May War between Israeland Amas and Gaza. All commission of
(19:33):
inquiries have a set period of time. Their commissioned to write a report over
a set amount of time, andthen they dissolve their their mandate is over.
The pill A Commission was the firstcommission established that has an ongoing,
never ending mandate. It's its mandateis just to investigate Israel's abuses and it
(19:56):
continues in perpetuity releasing reports on anannual basis at the Human Rights Council Who
picks the members of this commission?Because you know, some people, including
one individual I reported on for myreporting for Jewish News Syndicate, made obnoxious
claims of a so called quote Jewishlobby. How is it that these individuals
(20:21):
with a stated bias towards Israel populatethese commissions, whereas there is a lack
of credible, unbiased experts on touchbanels. Could you explain how does this
come to be? Right? Youknow, the members of any given commission
(20:42):
are supposed to be completely impartial,right, It's this, This is natural.
If you have someone that's conducting aninvestigation, they shouldn't have a bias
against the subject that they're investigating.But this tells you, I think a
bits about the the real intention behindthe Commission of Inquiry against Israel. It's
(21:07):
not to create unbiased reports looking athuman rights violations and in the region.
It's to create reports that will showIsrael as guilty predetermined and to send those
reports to the i c J,I c C wherever so they can use
them as evidence. But in inthe you know, the legal war against
(21:30):
Israel. So the the members ofthe commission as as you as you mentioned,
they are terribly, terribly biased againstIsrael. Navpla is the chair.
She was the former UN High Commissioneron Human Rights and during her tenure was
it was one of the worst againstIsrael. Miloun Kothari, that's who you
(21:52):
you were referencing. He's a memberof the Commission. He said he lashed
out against the Jewish lobby and saidthat they had been trying to discredit him.
He was forced to apologize. Butthat's something that you resigned for.
If you're investigating the Jewish state andyou're lashing out against the Jewish lobby,
(22:15):
you you're not. You are toobiased to be in that position. But
the Human Rights Council he's not.He wasn't forced out. He's still on
the Commission. And then the thirdCommissioner is Chris Sidotti, also a very
biased anti Israel individual. From thetime before he joined the Commission, it
was all predetermined that they would bewriting these reports. That's that Israel is
(22:41):
guilty of basically everything they could beaccused of. Are they picked directly by
the Member States or is the authorityto depict the experts granted to someone like
for example, Nevi Play and thatshe does the choosing of who sits on
these commissions as experts the Member statesare it happens basically behind closed doors,
(23:06):
the nominations that are received and thenbut the Member States are they're influencing.
Yeah, who's picked, who's allowedto be picked and the Yeah, and
the mandate needs to be passed bythe Member states. So yeah, with
the work un Watch has done,it's quite obvious that these entities like UNRA
(23:30):
and u NHRC have serious structural issues. One thing that is very frustrating is
that the United Nations as an organizationhas not worked to reform these problems.
Do you think that the persistence ofthese problems is more of deliberate neglect on
part of Member states rather than ignorance. It's a combination. You know,
(23:53):
you do have democracies that are partof the Human Rights Council of them pushed
back against the anti Israel bias.It's it's rare. But you know,
not only the Human rights counts walsoin the General Assembly. The US stands
alone really is the strongest country that'spushing back against antis old bias. But
(24:14):
you have other Western countries that playalong with it. And it could be
you know, there's there's a wholebunch of different reasons why. It could
be because of their trade relations withIsrael's enemies. Uh, and you know
it's a you know, tit fortat they know what they're getting when they
vote against Israel, and it makesit worth it for them to go against
Israel. Or you know a lotof these countries, you know, in
(24:37):
particular Ireland, Ireland, Spain,these are Western countries that don't have the
best record when it comes to uhyou know, their anti Semitism and anti
Israel bias and so anti semitism forsure. Is that plague here? Yeah,
(24:57):
when you look at the way thatany country is treating Israel in the
UN. But also a lot ofit is just it's it's politics and its
strategic interests, and it's Israel's enemiesare bringing the war to the Human Rights
Council in the UN mm HM withso many countries that openly abuse human rights.
(25:18):
Being members of the Council, wouldyou say that the UNHRC today is
a redundant organ of the United Nations. How would the UN Watch seek to
reform the UNHRC going forward? Well, Number one, and we've been advocating
for this for years. Item sevenneeds to be removed. If you if
(25:40):
the Human Rights Council wants to lookinto the alleged abuses of Israel, it
should be done. In Item four, just like any other country in the
world. This is this is obvious. Number two. Play's commission needs to
be disbanded. You can't have acommission of these biased individuals that have no
time constraints on their investigation. Also, we haven't even mentioned Special Rappertur from
(26:06):
CHESSCA Albanese, who is the SpecialRapperteur on Palestinian territories. She is the
worst of the worst of the worstwithin the UN system and even outside the
UN system. She's an open activist. Yeah, yeah, she's an open
activist. She's an open anti Semites. Essentially, she's it's she's she has
an obsession with comparing Israel to NaziGermany, and it's it goes beyond any
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kind of rational you know, it'sit's, uh, there's something pathological.
She's really she's she's really awful.M hm. So yeah, these you
know, putting someone who's not biasedinto her mandate, or removing the mandate,
removing the Commission of Inquiry, removingItem seven being more balanced than the
(26:57):
resolutions that are passed against Israel thoughthat you know, all these things,
it's this is what we would demandin terms of Human Rights Council reform.
But it's an uphill battle for surewith the composition of the Human Rights Council.
So that's that's also, I mean, that's that's really the main problem
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that you have, all of thesedictatorships and human rights abusers that are sitting
on the Human Rights Council. Ithink what we really would like to see
is, you know, every countryshould be represented by its human its heroes
of human rights, right the dissidents. They should be representing their countries in
(27:40):
the Human Rights Council, not thedictator But you know, this is a
dream for now, but in thefuture, hopefully one day that's how it
will be zooming out. From lookingat the u N HRC an undra and
looking at the big picture of theUN as a whole, would you say
that the UN has failed it's mandateoverall as the UN sailed its mandate overall?
(28:03):
Yeah, yes, I think that'sYou know, our our mission is
to evaluate the u N by thestandard of its own charter, and we
believe the charters and noble documents.But the UN has filled far far,
has fallen far, far far shortof the standard of its of its charter.
(28:26):
So and this is becoming more andmore obvious by the day. You
know, we've we've been doing thiswork for thirty years, and I think
part of our job is to youknow, really look at the system and
uh push back and influence lawmakers andinfluence country votes and and country statements at
(28:49):
the u N. But also partof it is just to inform the public.
And I think the public knows nowmore than ever all the failings at
the UN, going as far backas nineteen fifty eight. In the United
States, there has been calls forthe US to withdraw from the UN.
More recently, on twenty seventh Februarytwenty twenty one, the Alabama Republican Party
(29:14):
passed a resolution in support of aproposed US withdrawal from the organization. Even
marginal voices in Israel call for withrawlfrom the organization due to its bias.
Do you think that the UN isbeyond repair, that the best course of
action is for countries to disengage fromit and form independent blocks, or do
(29:37):
you think that there are still hopefor the organization? Well, the stance
that we take is that, asI said, the Charter of the UN
is a noble document, So wedon't advocate for countries to abandon the UN
as a whole. What we advocatefor is for countries that stand for the
(30:00):
write moral principles to be vocal andbe loud and become louder in the system
and push back more. And soyou know, we were we worked closely
with well, we're very supportive ofefforts of Nikki Haley when she was the
US Ambassador to the U n UH. She when she saw a problem in
(30:21):
the UN, problem in the UNsystem, she called it out. She
called for Human Rights Council reform,She called for ending the biased against Israel,
She called for more action against dictatorshipsUH in the UN system. And
before her, you know, therewere legendary US ambassadors to the UN,
Daniel Patrick moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick.UH. So we advocate for countries to
(30:44):
appoint ambassadors like these that will cometo the system, UH, come to
the UN and you know, bevery loud and vocal with their values UH
and push back against all of theUH the c option in the darkness.
And you know, I guess there'sthere's one story about the the bubbacher rebbe
(31:07):
Uh once told Benjamin ets Yahoo whenhe was when he first arrived as Israel's
ambassador to the UN in New York. He told them that the UN is
a very dark place, but ifyou can't if you light one candle in
a dark place, it could beseen from very far away. So his
mission in the UN was to lightthe candle of truth and so that truth
(31:32):
can be seen. So I thinkthat's that's very much what we do at
Unwatch. We were there to lightthe candle of truth and to be loud
and to and you know, standby our principles and represents really the moral
world, those who know what isjust, and we're there to share it
(31:52):
with the whole world at the UN. So we don't think that everyone should
withdraw. We think that those withthe right values should become loud and should
drown out those who have corrupted thesystem. Ladies and gentlemen, you just
listen to Daniel Smith of you andwatch Daniel Smith. Thank you for your
time. Yes, thank you somuch. Andrea, it's great to be
(32:13):
on. Thank you for listening toStrategic Wisdom. Be sure to follow and
subscribe to us on whatever podcast platformyou're using to listen to this show in
order to not miss any future interviews. And conversations that I bring to you
on this podcast. Also, besure to subscribe to Strategic Wisdom on Substack
(32:37):
at strategic Wisdom dot substack dot com. This is your host, Andrew Jose
signing up.
The United Nations is a hallmark ofthe post World War II liberal international order
established by the Allied powers, anorder that many say isn't declined today.
Is the United Nations today living upto its commitment of upholding those liberal international
norms that it is supposed to uphold, or has it been hijacked by authoritarian
(00:22):
states into becoming the sort of cudgelwith which those states can beat Western Powers
and Israel with the same values thatthey themselves did not respect. You're listening
to Strategic Wisdom with Andrew Jose.I'm Andrew Jose, a Washington, DC
based security policy analyst and news reporter, bringing you unique analyzes and commentary on
(00:47):
issues in international relations, security policy, and war. Joining me today is
Daniel Smith of un Watch, awatstop dedicated to holding the United Nations account
of to its founding principles. DanielSmith is the director of Advocacy for un
(01:40):
Watch. Un Watch is a Genevabased non government organization accredited by the UN.
The NGO state ad mission is tomonitor the performance of the United Nations
by the yardstake of its own charter. U and Watch has been active in
denouncing human rights abuses across the worldworld in areas such as, but not
(02:01):
limited to, the Democratic Republic ofthe Congo, Darfur, the People's Republic
of China, Cuba, Russia,and Venezuela. You and Watch often uses
its allocated time at the UNHRC toallow for dissidents and human rights activists to
speak and challenge the authoritarian states thattend to populate the Human Rights Council.
(02:25):
Daniel Smith, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Andrew.
It's really great to be here,happening to be on. But to start
off, Daniel, can you explainto the audience the history of You and
Watch when it was founded, whywas it founded, the historical event that
prompted its founding, and the workthe organization does today. Ewan Watch was
(02:46):
founded in nineteen ninety three by MorrisAbram, who is a pioneer of the
civil rights movements in the US andalso one of the leaders of the American
Jewish community. The last official rolethat he held in his career was as
the US Ambassador to the UN andJipa, where he was the ambassador at
the time to the UN Commission onHuman Rights, and in that post he
(03:07):
saw all that was wrong with humanrights at the UN, that dictators had
taken over the show and were shieldingtheir own abuses, and that Israel was
the main focus and scapegoat and themain target of criticism at the UN.
So he decided in nineteen ninety threeto remain in Geneva rather than moving back
(03:30):
to the US and to found UNWatch, to monitor the UN by the
standard of its own charter. Andthe two areas of his work that were
most important to him, basically theuniversal his work as a civil rights leader,
and also the particular his work asa leader in the Jewish community in
(03:52):
America became really our two points offocus at UN Watch. As I said,
our mission is to hold the UNto the standard of its charter,
and we do that basically in thetwo areas where the UN is falling short
the most. That's where dictatorships haveundo influence within the UN system and shield
(04:16):
their own abuses, and Israel andthe selective focused against Israel and bias against
Israel within the UN system. Uand Watch has criticized recently the United Nations
Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugeesin the Near East UNRA. What are
(04:36):
the key issues that this organization hasthat you and Watch believes we should all
be concerned about. For the lastdecade, U and Watch has been putting
out reports on UNRA. Our methodologyis very simple. We look at the
public social media profiles of individuals thatidentify as staff members of UNRA, and
(04:57):
what we found has been consistently shocking. There's replete support for terrorism and anti
semitism pretty much across the board everywherewe look. We've put together a total
of I believe it's thirteen reports nowthat we've issued and every time, basically
(05:18):
we're a headache for Anuran. Theyevery time we released one of these reports,
it causes a lot of backlash forthem amongst their donor states, and
they they tried to tarnish us inour reputation and instead of taking care of
the problem, you know what,you think an organization that's you know,
(05:39):
has any kind of oversight would bedoing, would be investigating and looking through
their entire organization and firing any individualsthat support terrorism. Instead, you know,
at one point, they issued asocial media guideline training guide to all
of their teachers which taught them howto make their profiles private. So instead
(06:00):
of actually taking care of the problemremoving terror supporters from their staff, they
just teach them how to hide theevidence. So, like I said,
we've been doing this over the pastdecade, but everything really escalated since October
seventh, and especially since January ofthis year. In early January, we
released a new report on findings arounda public telegram group which comprised of three
(06:29):
thousand Unread teachers in Gaza, andon October seventh, the group was replete
with support for the terror attacks thathad taken place. When we released this,
it caused a major problem for ANI, as all of our reports do,
and UNREAD chief Felipe Lazzarini announced thathe would be commissioning in a so
(06:54):
called independent review to look into theneutrality of aff At HONRA. Basically this
was to push back against any allegationswe had made and to as he said,
quote unquote, reassured Donor States.Then just a couple of weeks later,
(07:14):
Israel notified NRA that it had evidencethat twelve of its staff members had
participated in the October seventh attack.So this caused real shock waves really across
the world and especially in unrad DonorStates. One by one over a dozen
undred donor states paused funding froze fundingfor the organization as a result of these
(07:40):
revelations, and since then it's comeout that you know, somewhere around ten
percent of all Honora of staff inGaza are members of Hamas, and that
number is actually even deceiving a bitbecause only men can be members of Hamas,
so it's something closer to twenty percentof all men staff members of are
(08:07):
members of Lamas. But anyway,the real problem with UNRA is not like
this is all just a downstream problemthe support for terrorism. There's a much
deeper problem at the core of theorganization, which is which revolves around the
(08:28):
right of return that they believe Palestinianrefugees have. And this goes back to
the founding of the organization and whythere's one refugee organization for Palestinians and one
un refugee organization for the entire restof the world, and the problems that
creates and fuel in the conflict today. Interesting, what would you say are
(08:50):
the factors contributing to UNRA having somany members who sympathize with or have allegedly
worked with terrorist groups such as Hamasand the whole lot. Would you say
these are institutional factors or failure inoversight, or this thing is being deliberately
(09:11):
baked into how UNRA operates. Iwould go back to the core issue with
NRA being its mandate and that itis seen to protect the rate of return
that Palestinians claim that they have sounder the UNRA definition of refugees, seventy
(09:33):
percent of the population of a gazaare considered refugees. Right They've been living
in what ANRA calls refugee camps sincenineteen forty eight nineteen forty nine. Today,
these refugee camps are not what anyyou know, average person would think
of when they hear the word refugeecamp. They're cities, they're urban areas,
their neighborhoods. But you know thereal problem of why we see so
(09:56):
many members or staff members of HONRAthat are Hamas members today it goes back
to this. You know, forover seventy five years that HONRA has been
telling Gazans that their home is notin Gaza. It's been telling them that
you're a refugee and one day youwill return to where your ancestor where your
(10:22):
grandfather, where your great grandfather camefrom. So don't get comfortable in Gaza.
You have to go back. Youhave to return. Now. This
message is exactly what leads to somethinglike October seventh, where you have thousands
of armed, violent terrorists brossing theborder and what they see as a return
(10:46):
to their home. So it's nocoincidence that Honra is full of Hamas terrorists.
It's it's really it's part of it'spart of what Honra is and what
it teaches to Palestinians that created thisproblem. You're listening to Strategic Wisdom with
Andrew whose be sure to follow strategicWisdom on Twitter and Instagram at strat Wisdom.
(11:13):
That is s t r A tw I s d o m at
strat Wisdom. With that out ofthe way, let's get back to our
conversation with un Watch advocacy director DanielSmith. How does you and Watch believe
that UNRAS should be reformed? Shouldthe organization be reformed or should it be
(11:37):
abolished altogether in favor of the existingrefugee organization in the United Nations. We
believe it's not possible to reform onHonor needs to be abolished and replaced.
We We don't advocate for it tofor its services to disappear overnight. We
understand that its services, you know, underprovided. It's government likes services to
(12:03):
Palestinians and Gaza. Someone needs tobe providing these services, someone needs to
be running the schools, but itshould not be a UN agency for seventy
five years. Everywhere else in theworld, local governments are responsible for providing
government services. This is also thecase with UNHCR, the other UN refugee
(12:26):
agency which serves all other populations inthe world. UNHCR does not run schools,
it doesn't run entire medical systems.It it relies on host governments to
provide these services. HONRA is anexception, both in Gaza and then also
in Lebanon and Syria and Jordan andthe West Bank and each Jerusalem, UNRA
(12:52):
provides provides government services instead of thelocal governments. So that's that's something that
we don't see as as sustainable oracceptable, and we think all services that
are provided by UN needs to betransitioned eventually to local governments providing those services.
Now, we don't know what governmentis going to arise in Gaza at
(13:16):
this point after from US, butwe think already now in the immediate term,
Honorous services can be transferred to otheragencies that operate in Gaza, like
the World Food Program, like UNISEEand others. They could be providing the
(13:39):
services that UNER provides. So Honorand Gaza should be replaced by at first
other agencies and in the long runby governments, by a government that will
provide those government services. So ideallya Palestinian administration that it would be friendly
towards in the future, or acombination of the Israeli government and Palestinian officials.
(14:07):
Well, I mean, this isobviously a very complex topic. We're
not experts on you know, whatthe future of Gaza governments governance should look
like. So we're not going todictate what we believe it should be.
But we can't say we believe itshould not be Hamas and it also should
not be UNRUH. So someone besidesthem, What is the role of dark
(14:33):
money in unra's activities and its approachto the Israel Palestinian conflict, and who
are the main sources of dark money, if any, of the dark money
that flows into the organization's coffers,and does it actually play a major role
in corruption that goes on in thePalestinian territories. You know, I almost
(14:54):
wish I could say that there wasdark money at play here, because it
would make explaining this whole situation somuch easier. But the sad reality is
that this money is about as lightas it can be. It's it's coming
from Western taxpayers. Last year,in twenty twenty three, the US donated
four hundred and twenty two million dollarsto UNRAP, Germany donated two hundred and
(15:18):
twelve million dollars, the EU onehundred and twenty million. This is taxpayer
money that it's it's it's just sooutrageous that it's going to this organization that
that is supporting Hamas's terror and Gaza. Now I can speculate, you know,
(15:39):
as to maybe why governments are arefunding UNRA and what nefarious forces there
are that you know, behind thescenes, behind closed doors. Maybe you
know enemies of Israel that have traderelations with these Western government it's you know,
(16:00):
like Pater Saudi Arabia, you know, whichever others. They might say,
you want our oil, you wantto do business with us, you
want our investments from us? Howmuch are you donating to UNRA, show
us that you support our causs thatcould be happening, that probably is happening.
But the truth is the money that'sgoing directly to NRA, it's coming
(16:23):
from Western taxpayers, and it's Ithink one of the biggest moral failings of
the West today that this funding iscontinuing, though of course the US has
frozen for at least the next year, until at least March twenty twenty five,
so that's encouraging, but still theamount of Western dollars that are going
(16:45):
to UNRA is a moral outrage.Moving away from UNRA. How bad is
this situation with the Human Rights Councilvisa vi anti Israel bias currently, Yeah,
the the Human Rights Council, it'sa very bad situation. The Council
(17:06):
has ten agenda items every time itmeets three times a year. Agenda Item
four is to look at country atabuses of human rights and countries all over
the world except for Israel, andAgenda Item seven is focused specifically only on
Israel. So Israel is the onlycountry in the world that has a standing
agenda item that's addressed every single timethe Human Rights Council meets. So this
(17:36):
alone is enough to you know,just look at the Human Rights Council and
say that this h you know,this is a terrible council. But then
you look at the composition of theof the Council and the percentage of members
that are non democracies, and thatthemselves are some of the worst human rights
abusers in the world, like Chinaas a member of the Human Rights Council,
(18:00):
and you realize that what's happening hereis really dictatorships try to gain as
much influence within the system as theycan to shield their own abuses. There's
never been a resolution against China theHuman Rights counsul right, and every year
there are numerous resolutions against Israel.Since the founding of the Council in two
(18:21):
thousand and six, there have beenone hundred and eight resolutions targeting Israel.
The next highest amount for any countryis Syria, which received forty four.
So the Human Rights Council's really nota council focused on human rights. It's
a council focused on shielding human rightsabuses and using one country, Israel,
(18:44):
as the scapegoat. Speaking about singlingout Israel as a scapegoat, one thing
that grabbed the news since the startof the decade has been something known as
the pill A Commission. Could youexplain to the audience about the Pila Commission
what it is and what makes ita troublesome aspect of the UN now?
(19:06):
Sure, so, from time totime, the Human Rights Council commissions what's
called a Commission of Inquiry to investigatehuman rights abuses in a particular country situation.
Until twenty twenty one, when thepil A Commission was established in the
wake of the May War between Israeland Amas and Gaza. All commission of
(19:33):
inquiries have a set period of time. Their commissioned to write a report over
a set amount of time, andthen they dissolve their their mandate is over.
The pill A Commission was the firstcommission established that has an ongoing,
never ending mandate. It's its mandateis just to investigate Israel's abuses and it
(19:56):
continues in perpetuity releasing reports on anannual basis at the Human Rights Council Who
picks the members of this commission?Because you know, some people, including
one individual I reported on for myreporting for Jewish News Syndicate, made obnoxious
claims of a so called quote Jewishlobby. How is it that these individuals
(20:21):
with a stated bias towards Israel populatethese commissions, whereas there is a lack
of credible, unbiased experts on touchbanels. Could you explain how does this
come to be? Right? Youknow, the members of any given commission
(20:42):
are supposed to be completely impartial,right, It's this, This is natural.
If you have someone that's conducting aninvestigation, they shouldn't have a bias
against the subject that they're investigating.But this tells you, I think a
bits about the the real intention behindthe Commission of Inquiry against Israel. It's
(21:07):
not to create unbiased reports looking athuman rights violations and in the region.
It's to create reports that will showIsrael as guilty predetermined and to send those
reports to the i c J,I c C wherever so they can use
them as evidence. But in inthe you know, the legal war against
(21:30):
Israel. So the the members ofthe commission as as you as you mentioned,
they are terribly, terribly biased againstIsrael. Navpla is the chair.
She was the former UN High Commissioneron Human Rights and during her tenure was
it was one of the worst againstIsrael. Miloun Kothari, that's who you
(21:52):
you were referencing. He's a memberof the Commission. He said he lashed
out against the Jewish lobby and saidthat they had been trying to discredit him.
He was forced to apologize. Butthat's something that you resigned for.
If you're investigating the Jewish state andyou're lashing out against the Jewish lobby,
(22:15):
you you're not. You are toobiased to be in that position. But
the Human Rights Council he's not.He wasn't forced out. He's still on
the Commission. And then the thirdCommissioner is Chris Sidotti, also a very
biased anti Israel individual. From thetime before he joined the Commission, it
was all predetermined that they would bewriting these reports. That's that Israel is
(22:41):
guilty of basically everything they could beaccused of. Are they picked directly by
the Member States or is the authorityto depict the experts granted to someone like
for example, Nevi Play and thatshe does the choosing of who sits on
these commissions as experts the Member statesare it happens basically behind closed doors,
(23:06):
the nominations that are received and thenbut the Member States are they're influencing.
Yeah, who's picked, who's allowedto be picked and the Yeah, and
the mandate needs to be passed bythe Member states. So yeah, with
the work un Watch has done,it's quite obvious that these entities like UNRA
(23:30):
and u NHRC have serious structural issues. One thing that is very frustrating is
that the United Nations as an organizationhas not worked to reform these problems.
Do you think that the persistence ofthese problems is more of deliberate neglect on
part of Member states rather than ignorance. It's a combination. You know,
(23:53):
you do have democracies that are partof the Human Rights Council of them pushed
back against the anti Israel bias.It's it's rare. But you know,
not only the Human rights counts walsoin the General Assembly. The US stands
alone really is the strongest country that'spushing back against antis old bias. But
(24:14):
you have other Western countries that playalong with it. And it could be
you know, there's there's a wholebunch of different reasons why. It could
be because of their trade relations withIsrael's enemies. Uh, and you know
it's a you know, tit fortat they know what they're getting when they
vote against Israel, and it makesit worth it for them to go against
Israel. Or you know a lotof these countries, you know, in
(24:37):
particular Ireland, Ireland, Spain,these are Western countries that don't have the
best record when it comes to uhyou know, their anti Semitism and anti
Israel bias and so anti semitism forsure. Is that plague here? Yeah,
(24:57):
when you look at the way thatany country is treating Israel in the
UN. But also a lot ofit is just it's it's politics and its
strategic interests, and it's Israel's enemiesare bringing the war to the Human Rights
Council in the UN mm HM withso many countries that openly abuse human rights.
(25:18):
Being members of the Council, wouldyou say that the UNHRC today is
a redundant organ of the United Nations. How would the UN Watch seek to
reform the UNHRC going forward? Well, Number one, and we've been advocating
for this for years. Item sevenneeds to be removed. If you if
(25:40):
the Human Rights Council wants to lookinto the alleged abuses of Israel, it
should be done. In Item four, just like any other country in the
world. This is this is obvious. Number two. Play's commission needs to
be disbanded. You can't have acommission of these biased individuals that have no
time constraints on their investigation. Also, we haven't even mentioned Special Rappertur from
(26:06):
CHESSCA Albanese, who is the SpecialRapperteur on Palestinian territories. She is the
worst of the worst of the worstwithin the UN system and even outside the
UN system. She's an open activist. Yeah, yeah, she's an open
activist. She's an open anti Semites. Essentially, she's it's she's she has
an obsession with comparing Israel to NaziGermany, and it's it goes beyond any
(26:32):
kind of rational you know, it'sit's, uh, there's something pathological.
She's really she's she's really awful.M hm. So yeah, these you
know, putting someone who's not biasedinto her mandate, or removing the mandate,
removing the Commission of Inquiry, removingItem seven being more balanced than the
(26:57):
resolutions that are passed against Israel thoughthat you know, all these things,
it's this is what we would demandin terms of Human Rights Council reform.
But it's an uphill battle for surewith the composition of the Human Rights Council.
So that's that's also, I mean, that's that's really the main problem
(27:19):
that you have, all of thesedictatorships and human rights abusers that are sitting
on the Human Rights Council. Ithink what we really would like to see
is, you know, every countryshould be represented by its human its heroes
of human rights, right the dissidents. They should be representing their countries in
(27:40):
the Human Rights Council, not thedictator But you know, this is a
dream for now, but in thefuture, hopefully one day that's how it
will be zooming out. From lookingat the u N HRC an undra and
looking at the big picture of theUN as a whole, would you say
that the UN has failed it's mandateoverall as the UN sailed its mandate overall?
(28:03):
Yeah, yes, I think that'sYou know, our our mission is
to evaluate the u N by thestandard of its own charter, and we
believe the charters and noble documents.But the UN has filled far far,
has fallen far, far far shortof the standard of its of its charter.
(28:26):
So and this is becoming more andmore obvious by the day. You
know, we've we've been doing thiswork for thirty years, and I think
part of our job is to youknow, really look at the system and
uh push back and influence lawmakers andinfluence country votes and and country statements at
(28:49):
the u N. But also partof it is just to inform the public.
And I think the public knows nowmore than ever all the failings at
the UN, going as far backas nineteen fifty eight. In the United
States, there has been calls forthe US to withdraw from the UN.
More recently, on twenty seventh Februarytwenty twenty one, the Alabama Republican Party
(29:14):
passed a resolution in support of aproposed US withdrawal from the organization. Even
marginal voices in Israel call for withrawlfrom the organization due to its bias.
Do you think that the UN isbeyond repair, that the best course of
action is for countries to disengage fromit and form independent blocks, or do
(29:37):
you think that there are still hopefor the organization? Well, the stance
that we take is that, asI said, the Charter of the UN
is a noble document, So wedon't advocate for countries to abandon the UN
as a whole. What we advocatefor is for countries that stand for the
(30:00):
write moral principles to be vocal andbe loud and become louder in the system
and push back more. And soyou know, we were we worked closely
with well, we're very supportive ofefforts of Nikki Haley when she was the
US Ambassador to the U n UH. She when she saw a problem in
(30:21):
the UN, problem in the UNsystem, she called it out. She
called for Human Rights Council reform,She called for ending the biased against Israel,
She called for more action against dictatorshipsUH in the UN system. And
before her, you know, therewere legendary US ambassadors to the UN,
Daniel Patrick moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick.UH. So we advocate for countries to
(30:44):
appoint ambassadors like these that will cometo the system, UH, come to
the UN and you know, bevery loud and vocal with their values UH
and push back against all of theUH the c option in the darkness.
And you know, I guess there'sthere's one story about the the bubbacher rebbe
(31:07):
Uh once told Benjamin ets Yahoo whenhe was when he first arrived as Israel's
ambassador to the UN in New York. He told them that the UN is
a very dark place, but ifyou can't if you light one candle in
a dark place, it could beseen from very far away. So his
mission in the UN was to lightthe candle of truth and so that truth
(31:32):
can be seen. So I thinkthat's that's very much what we do at
Unwatch. We were there to lightthe candle of truth and to be loud
and to and you know, standby our principles and represents really the moral
world, those who know what isjust, and we're there to share it
(31:52):
with the whole world at the UN. So we don't think that everyone should
withdraw. We think that those withthe right values should become loud and should
drown out those who have corrupted thesystem. Ladies and gentlemen, you just
listen to Daniel Smith of you andwatch Daniel Smith. Thank you for your
time. Yes, thank you somuch. Andrea, it's great to be
(32:13):
on. Thank you for listening toStrategic Wisdom. Be sure to follow and
subscribe to us on whatever podcast platformyou're using to listen to this show in
order to not miss any future interviews. And conversations that I bring to you
on this podcast. Also, besure to subscribe to Strategic Wisdom on Substack
(32:37):
at strategic Wisdom dot substack dot com. This is your host, Andrew Jose
signing up.
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