UKLFI Charitable Trust hosted a webinar on The UN’s Pillay Commission: The Battle Between Normalization and Criminalization with Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch, and chaired by Jonathan Turner, Executive Director of UKLFI Charitable Trust.
It took place on Wednesday 13 April.
This webinar is a briefing on the UN’s new, perpetual Commission of Inquiry, headed by Navi Pillay. This Commission intends to present a preliminary report this June on last year’s Hamas-Israel war and on alleged “systematic discrimination” by Israel. What is this report likely to find? How does the Pillay Commission fit into related developments, at the UN and in the human rights world, in the campaign to condemn Israel as an “apartheid” state? How can supporters of peace and normalization fight back against the forces of hate and criminalization?
More about the speakers:
Hillel Neuer is the Executive Director of UN Watch, a human rights NGO in Geneva. In 2016, the City of Chicago declared Hillel Neuer Day, citing his role “as one of the world’s foremost human rights advocates.” In 2018, McGill University awarded Neuer an honorary doctorate for his work to advance human rights. The Tribune de Genève has described Neuer as a human rights activist who is “feared and dreaded” by the world’s dictatorships.
In 2007 Neuer’s banned speech on the hypocrisy of the UNHRC became the most viewed NGO speech in the UN’s history. His 2017 speech “Where are your Jews” has been viewed over 11 million times on Facebook and YouTube.
Since 2009, Neuer has headed a coalition of 25 human rights groups as chair of the annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, which provides a global platform to pro-democracy dissidents from around the world.
Neuer is a member of the New York Bar and practised commercial and civil rights litigation at an international law firm in New York before joining UN Watch.
Jonathan Turner is a barrister based in London and a co-founder of UK Lawyers for Israel, an association of lawyers using laws to support Israel and counter BDS and other anti-Israel activity. Jonathan has led the organisation since its formation in 2011 and participated in many of its successful projects, including preventing the attempt to get Israel suspended from FIFA.