John Donvan
This is open to debate. I’m John Donvan. Hi everybody. Today a focus on the Middle East and Israel and Gaza and the United Nations. It is ironic that a critical moment in the foundation of the state of Israel was the day that it won recognition by the United Nations. That happened in May of 1949 when Israel was new and frankly so was the United Nations. So it can be said that the UN played a critical role in the birthing of Israel as a state since then. However, and here’s the irony, at many junctures and at a variety of issues, the two have often been in collision while the prospects for a permanent peace, which is a goal of the United Nations to promote, don’t seem any closer today than they did in 1949. There has long been tension over one UN agency, in particular known as UN rra. Those are initials that stand for United Nations Relief and Works administration.

John Donvan
UN RRA has been on the ground in refugee communities and its defined mission has been to provide Palestinians with social services like education and healthcare, which it has been delivering for decades since 1950. As you’ll hear in this debate, there are widely conflicting views on unre impact. And this divide was exacerbated after it was revealed that some local unre personnel were involved in the Hamas terror attack of October 7th that killed more than 1200 Israelis. They were members of Hamas or collaborating with it. United Nations officials investigated and confirmed this, and this is a fact that returned the spotlight to the fraught relationship between Israel and the United Nations. And that prompts the question we’re taking on in this debate. Is the UN helping or hurting in the Middle East? Let’s meet our debaters. Arguing that UN efforts in the Middle East are helping and want to welcome Richard Gowan. Richard is the UN and multilateral diplomacy director at the International Crisis Group. He’s a non-resident fellow at NYU Center on International Cooperation. His background also includes time spent as consultant for organizations such as the UN Department of Political Affairs and the UN Office of the special representative of the Secretary General on international migration. Richard, welcome to Open to Debate. It’s so great to have you and with all of your expertise on the program.

Richard Gowan
Thank you so much for the invitation

John Donvan
And here argue that UN efforts in the Middle East are hurting. I want to welcome Hillel. New Hillel is the Executive Director of Watch. He formerly taught international human rights at the Geneva School of Diplomacy in addition to having served as vice president of the NGO Special Committee on Human Rights in Geneva. Hillel, welcome to the program.

Hillel Neuer
Thank you for having me.

John Donvan
We discovered when we asked each of you to take part in the program that you have communicated with each other in the past over X with messages or postings that perhaps to some degree take aim at each other. I don’t mean in a personal way, but you had some sharp disagreement. We’re just curious, is this the first time that the two of you who have met that way virtually are actually going to be talking and addressing one another directly?

Richard Gowan
That is correct.

John Donvan
Alright, well, we’re glad to be able to make that happen. Our goal here is to do exactly what we’re doing is to get people who disagree with each other, to at least talk with each other. And we really appreciate that each of you is willing to do this and we look forward to the outcome. So let’s get onto our opening statements in our first round. And our first round is comprised of opening statements in which each of you take a few minutes to tell us why you’re taking the position that you are. Richard, you are up first and you are arguing that UN efforts in the Middle East are helping. Here’s your chance, please to tell us why.

Richard Gowan
Well, look, I think I have an uphill battle here because we have to be honest that right now nobody thinks that the UN is doing a great job in the Middle East. I think Israelis are furious over the allegations around RAH that you referred to. They also feel that the UN has been very biased to them during the war between Israel and to mass. But actually Arab states are also very cross and Arab publics are very angry because they believe that the UN has not protected the Palestinians. They blame the UN for not bringing an end to the war. So why would I argue that the UN is still helpful in the Middle East? I would want to zoom out for a second before we get into the details and emphasize three reasons I think the UN matters in the region. Firstly, the UN is still an essential player in humanitarian assistance around the whole Middle East.

Richard Gowan
There are about 60 million people in that region who are hungry or vulnerable. The UN gets some sort of assistance to between 30 and 40 million of those people. And if the UN wasn’t providing that assistance, we would see more refugees, more violence, and more suffering across the entire Middle East from Yemen to Syria and further afield. And that is still a crucial stabilizing function that the UN plays. Secondly, the UN does have a security role in the Middle East. There are still peacekeepers on Israel’s borders with Lebanon and with Syria. Now, Israel has complained that UN peacekeepers in Southern Lebanon have not done enough to deal with the threat of Hezbollah, and we can discuss that. But it was striking that after the clashes between Israel and Hezbollah last year, the ceasefire that was agreed kept the UN in place and actually asked the UN peacekeepers in Lebanon to assist the Lebanese armed forces takeover areas which Hezbollah had previously controlled.

Richard Gowan
So Israel has recognized that for all their faults, UN peacekeepers are a useful part of their security framework, at least on the Lebanese border going forward. And there’s no one else who will really do peacekeeping in the Middle East. There’s been talk of NATO peacekeepers in the Middle East. Well, NATO is focused on Ukraine now. There’s been talk of an Arab coalition of peacekeepers potentially going into Gaza. I mean Arab governments have made it fairly clear that they don’t want to do that. So when we look for an organization that can send peacekeepers to stabilize areas around Israel, I’m afraid that you do come back to the UN even if it is not perfect. And then finally, the UN still has an important diplomatic role bringing together countries on issues like sanctions against jihadist groups in the Middle East. There’s a lot of silly diplomacy around Israel and its neighbors at the un.

Richard Gowan
I’m sure we’re going to talk about some examples of that. But actually the UN does play a significant function on sanctions, sanctions against Al-Qaeda sanctions against the Islamic state and potentially sanctions again against Iran. Obviously, Iran’s nuclear program is a huge source of concern to Israel. Well, the Trump administration has said that it wants to reimpose previously suspended sanctions against Iran to try and get it to end that nuclear program. So even the Trump administration sees that the UN is useful to it diplomatically when it comes to regional security. Now we are going, I think Halel and I to disagree on a lot of points about the details of what the UN does. There are very valid criticisms of the un, but I think this humanitarian security and diplomatic function of the UN remains essential and that’s why I think that it helps.

John Donvan
Thank you very much, Richard. Now Hillel, it is your turn again to remind our viewers and listeners that you are arguing that the UN is helping. I’m sorry, you are arguing that the UN is hurting in the Middle East. Here’s your chance, please to tell us why.

Hillel Neuer
Thank you. Look, I had an organization called UN Watch. We’re dedicated to seeing that the United Nations lives up to its noble charter. So we want the UN to work. The UN could play a vital role. Even President Trump has said the UN could play a wonderful role, but sadly they’re not. The founder of our organization was civil rights leader, Morris Abram. He was a UN expert in the 1960s who sat on the committee of the United Nations that helped write the convention on the elimination of racism. So my organization and myself, we want the UN to work, sadly, with only a handful of exceptions, the UN in most cases is not helping bring peace and human rights to the Middle East. Certainly we’re talking today about the Israel Arab conflict. It is doing the opposite. It is hindering chances for peace. And let’s look across from the un and again, the bar is what could be done.

Hillel Neuer
The United States took the lead in achieving the Abraham Accords that was bringing peace between Israel and Arab countries. The United Nations had no role in that. The Camp David Peace Agreement, the United Nations had no role in that. If you look at the major peace agreements, the United Nations basically had no rule. If anything they’re harming, how are they harming? Well, secretary General Gutierrez has been shocking since the October 7th massacre. The United Nations Declarations of Human Rights in 1948 was adopted in response. And I quote to Barbaras acts, which outrage the conscience of mankind when Barbara’s acts were committed by Hamas Gutierrez, instead of leading the world in confronting them, he said, yes, I condemn Hamas. But there was a context, nothing happens in a vacuum. And when he said those words early on, he gave the message basically justifying what Hamas did as saying their grievances were justified.

Hillel Neuer
That’s a Secretary General who set the tone for the organization as a whole. Let’s look to the parliament of the United Nations, the General Assembly. Every year they adopt one resolution on Iran, one on North Korea, one on Syria, and 17 on Israel.

John Donvan
Thank you, Hillel. Alright, so we are very pleased to hear both of your arguments presented with such clarity and force. We’re going to take a break and when we come back, we’re going to go deeper into our question UN efforts in the Middle East, helping or hurting. I’m John Donvan. This is open to debate and we’ll be right back. Welcome back to Open to Debate. I’m John Donvan and we are taking on the question UN efforts in the Middle East, helping or hurting. Our debaters are Richard Gowan UN and multilateral diplomacy director at the International Crisis Group and Hillel Neuer, executive director of watch. I just want to talk a little bit about what I heard in your opening statements. Richard, I heard you say that first of all, absolutely you acknowledge that the UN leaves room for criticism in many, many ways, but that in terms of the question that we’re debating whether it’s helping or hurting in the Middle East, you would argue that despite any of those problems, it’s overall helping.

John Donvan
You’re saying it plays an essential role in meeting or offending off human right human. Sorry, I’m having a blank on my humanitarian. That was the word I was looking for. You’re saying it plays an essential role in humanitarian issues, that it is serving some 60 million people, including refugees and many who are suffering in various ways. You also say that UN peacekeepers are playing still a critical role. Again, despite criticism, still playing a critical role in its placement of an organization called IL, where it’s been since 1978 along the border in Lebanon, along the border with Israel and Syria, you acknowledged that in fact Israel wants to include IL in future arrangements and that demonstrates that it is actually playing a constructive role. And you also say that the United Nations plays a critical role in placing sanctions and enforcing sanctions against rogue outfits and rogue states such as Iran and other terrorist organizations.

John Donvan
And so overall, you’re saying that there’s a constructive role that the UN is playing has been playing for a long time and should continue to play. Al, I hear you saying that in the large framework of whether the United Nations is helping to support and promote a peaceful resolution to the conflict in the Middle East, that it generally fails that although an organization like ra, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency has a positive mission, that it’s been corrupted through politics over a long period of time. That the organization overall, the United Nations organization overall because of a strong, as you depicted anti-Israel tilt, is actually a hindering piece in the Middle East. You point out that that tilt can be demonstrated by the way that the General Assembly has voted over 70 years and that the special repertoire a person who works for the Human Rights Council to kind of keep an eye on things in the Middle East at that special UR is you say severely compromised when it comes to the position of impartiality that she’s actually anti-Israel.

John Donvan
I think you suggested also anti-Semitic and pro Hamas. So I see those are the two dividing lines. There are many, many pieces of this and many details to talk through. So I want to get started by this focus on Unre that you brought up Hillel in your closing, I want to note that in February of last year, you testified before the US Congress and you were making the case then that the US should stop funding sending funds to the Human Rights Council, which supports UN RI think to the tune at that point of about $300 million. And what happened subsequently is that the Biden administration did suspend that aid and the Trump administration has not resumed and in fact the Trump administration has pulled out of that council. But I want you to talk a little bit more about the degree to which the compromising of unre as you depicted supports your argument that the UN overall is doing a bad thing when you know that Richard’s position is that nevertheless the organization helps a lot of people in a lot of very material ways.

Hillel Neuer
Look, I think what Richard said underscores my point. Our debate is focused on the UN and the Middle East, but particularly on the Israel Arab conflict, Israel Palestinian conflict. And I agree with Richard that there are places in the world outside of that conflict. If you remove Israel, if you remove the Jews, there are places where the UN can play an important role. And I support UN agencies that however flawed and imperfect can do good. I work next to the U-N-H-C-R, that’s the UN Refugee Agency whose mission is to resettle refugees. And when there are refugees from wars in Yemen, in Syria, in Russia and Ukraine, they have resettled hundreds of thousands and over decades, millions of people. We just brought a refugee from Yemen who testified before the Human Rights Council us. So the Unah is the opposite. That’s the problem is Unah hasn’t resettled a single Palestinian in seven decades.

Hillel Neuer
They are the opposite of the U-N-H-C-R. The goal of resettling refugees is not the goal of Unah. RA’s goal effectively is to dismantle Israel. They tell Palestinians in Gaza who are living in what the UN calls the state of Palestine, they’ve been in Gaza for decades. They are told this is not your home. Your home is in Tel Aviv, your home is in Haifa. And so Palestinians are brought up, 90% of whom according to Johan Sufi, the former head of the Unre legal office in Gaza, 90% of Gaan go to unre schools. And we shouldn’t be surprised that thousands of them took part in the massacre of October 7th because they were told this is how you are supposed to act. You have the right to dismantle Israel the right of return, which involves resistance, which means terrorism. That’s what they were taught in Unre schools. It’s the opposite of what U-N-H-C-R would do. Similarly, Richard mentioned sanctions, and I agree with Richard that the UN when they, after the,

John Donvan
Could we hold off, could we hold off just on the sanctions point? First I just want to ask Richard to respond to your depiction of ra. Richard, take the floor please.

Richard Gowan
Well, look, I mean there is no doubt that RA has been infiltrated by Hamas. I think it’s probably also been infiltrated by Israeli intelligence, but that’s another story. But I’m afraid my view on this is actually quite cynical. There’s never been a humanitarian operation in the world that hasn’t been manipulated by bad actors on the ground. It comes with the territory. And in Gaza in particular, we’d always known, and Israel always knew that Hamas had penetrated ra. Although I would also say there are many very fine RA officials who I think are actually deeply motivated by a desire to help the Palestinians. Why then did Israel continue to agree that UNR should operate in Gaza and the West Bank? The answer is that it was stabilizing the situation. My colleagues at Crisis Group have called RA a substitute for the state. It was providing sanitation, it was providing health, it was providing education.

Richard Gowan
And yes, that education has been controversial, but if you hadn’t had RA there, you would simply have had chaos. And I think that we should be honest with ourselves that until the 7th of October, Israel and Israel’s friends were happy to support RAH because it kept a lid on the perceived problem in Gaza and also in the West Bank. Now, Israel wants to close Rah. I understand those emotions, but I think that what we’re going to find is that there is no credible alternative. Private companies cannot provide the sort of services that RA provided. So there is a risk that we simply just allow the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank to deepen because we’re not going to provide them real aid.

John Donvan
Okay, let Hillel respond to that.

Hillel Neuer
I agree with Richard. Richard actually touched on a point that many people don’t understand, which is RA often says today, say Netanyahu and Israel, they’ve always tried to destroy RA Richard’s, right? Those who are insiders and who are honest know that Israel did not try to destroy ra. Actually, Israel thought, and I agree with Richard on this, that it provided stability and Israel did not try to destroy ra. Netanyahu made critical remarks, but that was largely rhetoric and he did not try to destroy ra. And the truth is that that stability was a false stability. It’s the same. Israel thought that Hamas was deterred. Hamas was not deterred. Hamas was very cleverly, very masterfully building a terrorist army with the help of Iran carefully mapping out over five years of so-called protests at the border wall, they were preparing the onslaught. And RA buys a false stability.

Hillel Neuer
I mean, Richard says, what will replace ra? The answer is two words, and that’s Palestinian responsibility. And I’m quoting Dr. A, not Will who wrote a terrific book called The War of Return on this. And Palestinians are very capable people and I respect them. If we look at what happened in Gaza, they built hundreds of miles of terror tunnels. Israel didn’t really know, most of the world didn’t really know people at renew because everyone knew in Gaza, but Israel apparently didn’t know they were building hundreds of miles of terror tunnels. They built a very sophisticated, very large army, which overwhelmed Israel massacre 1200 people in one day. Palestinians can run things on their own. The problem is that for decades, the UN said, you don’t do this. You’re going to be aid recipients. Why should a people of very capable people who can do good things if they want to, can do terrible things.

Hillel Neuer
If the government, if the people vote for Hamas, which they voted for Hamas, they could run their own economy, they can collect taxes instead of using it to buy rocket launchers and build terror tunnels, they could use it to feed their own people. So I think keeping Palestinians in dependency is wrong. And I think Hamas said openly, they said The UN takes care of the refugees, we take care of the fighters. We don’t bring the Palestinian people underneath to give them a bomb shelter. That’s for our fighters, our gunmen. We abandoned them, the UN will take care of them. So it’s just developed a horrible culture. The truth is that those who want to see Palestinians and Israelis live together, which I do, should let Gazen that. I just met with a Gaza named Rami Aman, who’s a hero. He was imprisoned in Gaza for six and a half months because he dared to call for peace.

Hillel Neuer
If Gazen build Gaza, we can make fun of Trump. But he made one point that’s very clear, which is Gaza is a beautiful place. I’ve been there, I’ve seen the White Sands. It’s a magnificent beach. It’s just downstream from Tel Aviv. It can be a magnificent revera, absolutely, but if the people running it are not Dubai Arabs who know how to build up into the sky and into the future, but they’re Hamas and RA encourage that culture. RA tells Palestinians, your home is not in Gaza again, they live in Palestine. Same thing in the West Bank. They’re living in. Janine,

John Donvan
I’m just going to jump in the interest of time. Richard, you can respond to that or if not, I have a question for you.

Richard Gowan
Well, I think everyone would say that we want to end up in a situation where there is a functional Palestinian state. And I don’t think that that is in doubt. I actually don’t think that the key to that is whether, which particular UN agency you have there, it requires political compromises by both Israel and the Palestinian authority. And I dunno if we’re going to get those political compromises, but I think if you talk to serious RA officials, and let me emphasize again, I do know very, very good, very caring RA officials. They will tell you we are sort of holding the ring. We’re waiting for a solution. We’ve been waiting for a solution for decades when there is a political way out of this situation. Rock

John Donvan
And go. That’s fine. That does lead to the question I wanted to ask you, Richard based, which comes from something that Hillel said in his opening, which is that Unah has not worked to resettle the refugees, that it’s persuaded them to stay in place and to aspire to returning to the places that they fled from in 1948 and in 1967. Do you agree with that assessment and should RA’s mission have been the notion of resettlement?

Richard Gowan
So RA’s mandate back in the 1940s was essentially to assist the Palestinians both in the Palestinian Territories but also in neighboring countries like Jordan until the right of return was possible. And it doesn’t have a mandate to do resettlement and it doesn’t actually have a mandate to facilitate the return of Palestinians to their former homes, although that obviously is impossible at the present time. It is just meant to assist them for what was I think expected to be a few years. I mean, Hillel may know the history of this better than me. No one thought that this was going to be a 75 year process. And so the UN has been left holding this problem with a mandate to keep supporting the Palestinians in the hope of there being a political way out. And without there being a political way out, then you are going to have this situation. And again, as I say, it’s inevitable when you have a very big humanitarian operation in a very small area like Gaza, that it will be penetrated, that it will be manipulated. That is just sadly an inevitability of international assistance. Hello?

Hillel Neuer
Yeah. Look, I think I’m afraid that Richard is downplaying the of Unrun again, there’s two problems. Even if Unrun were not infiltrated again, the purpose has become pathological, the founding.

John Donvan
Could we just point out to people who don’t know that 99% of the staff of UN R working in Gaza, 13 some 13,000 people, 99% of them are Palestinians. And I’m just not sure that people know that, that we’re not talking

Hillel Neuer
About

John Donvan
Officials from outside coming in and working there.

Hillel Neuer
That’s right. Actually it’s a good point that you make because Unup will use different narratives at different times. If Palestinians get killed in Gaza, when Hamas fires rockets and Israel responds, they will try to portray them as Swedish humanitarians and say, UN aid officials have been killed. And most people around the world assume that those are international expats who were killed and not Palestinians and Gaza, who may have been in the home of a Hamas terrorist on other occasions when they’re found to be members of Hamas RA will rush and say, just to be clear, these are Palestinian refugees and the reason that they were teaching terrorism and glorifying Adolf Hitler don’t think those are international UN officials. They are actually Palestinian refugees. So that conflation is sometimes encouraged by the UN and RA depending on the talking points they want to achieve. But I would just want to make two points to respond to Richard.

Hillel Neuer
One is that it’s true that at the beginning, the original resolution, the idea of RA was to help them actually find relief and works where they were. America sent the head of the Tennessee Valley Authority to try to help them start new lives where they were and they refused. They said that the Jihad against Israel, that there should be no Jewish state is something they’re not prepared to renounce. And the idea that they would return was conditioned on that some would return was conditioned that they would be returned peacefully. That has never been the goal of the Palestinians who declare the right of return. And we saw it on October 7th. They’re not interested in some peaceful return. And again, those Palestinians who fled, most of them are dead. And we’re talking about generations. So one question is Israel left Gaza 20 years ago. The Palestinians living there effectively did create their own state, but it was a hama state of terrorism and there was no reason for unah in Gaza. Unah was controlled entirely by Palestinians. Israel agreed to the creation of the pa. The PA could take care of

Speaker 3
All Palestinian

Hillel Neuer
Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority, thank you, could take care of all the Palestinians in Gaza. The Palestinian authority controls Palestinians in Janine, but not across the street in the Janine refugee camp. I mean, it’s absurd. And again, the whole point is to tell them that they’re going to help dismantle Israel. But just one final point Port to keep in mind, Richard has spoken about Unah officials and their noble intentions. I have to question those intentions because for 10 years, our organization watch has been sending very simple reports, screenshots of Unre teachers, hundreds of them who openly glorify Adel Hitler, celebrate terrorist attacks, say you have to slaughter Jews in the name of Allah. These are teachers at UN school principals. And Unres response, Chris gunna, a very famous spokesman for years was to attack us and tofa us not to root out the problem. This year we sent a dossier to the current head of ra, Philippe Lazer, who appears as a very well-intentioned Swiss humanitarian about the fact that the head of the teacher’s union in Gaza, fat Sharif was a leading Hamas member and he did nothing.

Hillel Neuer
Okay? He gave him a slap on the wrist and suspended him, but refused to fire him. And thousands of Unre teachers rallied on his behalf. So it’s not a drop in the bucket. This is the entire system in Gaza, sorry, in Lebanon. And in September or October, justice was delivered to Fat Sharif. A missile took him out. And on that same day, Hamas announced that Fat Sharif, the head of the Unah Teachers Union, was the head of Hamas. I’m going to say that one more time. The head of the Unah Teachers Union was the head of Hamas. He wasn’t hiding it. He boasted about terrorism every day on his Facebook page on community websites. And the leaders of Ara Philippe Azari, his German director in Lebanon, Dorothy Klaus, they did nothing. And you have to assume that they approve of this behavior that is ra.

Richard Gowan
I don’t believe they approve of that behavior. I think that for the last, what, 18 months, however long RA officials have been just desperately trying to find any way to get any assistance they can in tag Gaza. And that has meant very difficult conversations with the Israelis and very difficult conversations with Hamas. Now, if you go back to the period before the atrocities on the 7th of October, I think actually honest UN officials, honest UN r officials would say yes, there were cultural problems in nra. And before the 7th of October, there was actually quite a lot of thinking behind the scenes at the UN about how to shake up the institution. There was a recognition that it had real problems. As I say, since the 7th of October, just everyone has been on emergency watch. The one thing I would say though, Hillel, is let’s imagine we took UN route, which again is the Israeli, let’s just imagine that it disappeared.

Richard Gowan
Whoever came in, whether it was other UN agencies like the World Food Program, whether it was private contractors, whether it was Palestinian institutions, they would be relying pretty much on the same individuals to provide health services to provide education. And they would also face the challenge of penetration By Hamas, I mean Hamas retains quite a strong deep state in Gaza despite military defeat. And it’s not just about the institution, one specific institution which you can take away and remove the problem. And those problems will continue to be there. And again, there is a way out of this. We all want a way out of it, but the way out of it is some sort of political solution. And as you say, if that means strengthening the Palestinian authority. Good. We’re on the same page.

John Donvan
I want to move on to, you wanted to talk about sanctions earlier, sanctions in the region, Hillel, and you had some response to Richard’s point that they play a very constructive role in imposing sanctions. And I wanted to see what your response to that is.

Hillel Neuer
Sure. So I agree with Richard that UN sanctions that were imposed after the nine 11 terrorist attacks by Al-Qaeda were useful. And there are rare occasions when the UN can agree that terrorists like Al-Qaeda or ISIS are terrorists. Sadly, they’ve never done so with Hamas the opposite, or Islamic Jihad or any of the other Palestinian terrorist agencies, with maybe a rare exception of an agency that might be affiliated with Al-Qaeda or isis. The main Palestinian terrorist groups are get a free pass in terms of the un. In fact, the UN relief chief Martin Griffiths last year said, I do not regard Hamas as a terrorist organization. And they’re not on any sanctions list. So Honor actually was playing a game. Honor would say, oh, we vet people according to the UN sanctions list, knowing that the question isn’t whether a GAZEN is part of Al-Qaeda, the question is, is he part of Hamas or the Jihad? And so I agree that sanctions have worked in rare instances in other cases. But in terms of the Israeli Arab conflict, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the UN has refused to impose sanctions on groups that massacre whole families, torture, rape, take hostages, torture them. The UN refuses to call them a terrorist group as their political organization.

Richard Gowan
Well, this actually takes us back to a moment of deep frustration for many of us in New York, which was back in October, 2023. Within a few weeks of the seven October attacks, Brazil, which was then a member of the Security Council, tabled a security council resolution that for the first time ever condemned Hamas and I think described Hamas as a terrorist organization. And that resolution failed. But it failed because the US vetoed it. Now, the US vetoed it because it said that it didn’t give Israel sufficiently strong support in terms of self-defense, but a lot of diplomats, including a lot of us diplomats thought there was a moment there. They thought there was a moment where the UN would finally condemn. Hermas would finally sort of start to treat it as a terrorist organization. It could have been a real breakthrough. I’ve spoken to Arab diplomats who look back on that as a major failure. I think that was a lost opportunity.

Hillel Neuer
Well, we know that the United States under Nikki Haley actually brought an amendment to a resolution to specifically declare Hamas a terrorist organization. And actually, interestingly, it did get a majority, but it didn’t get the super majority that was needed and it never passed. But when you have leading UN officials like the UN relief chief saying, I do not regard Hamas as a terrorist organization. And when you see Philippe Lazar, the head of RA, who openly meets with Hamas, and yes, you could say in some cases he needs to for on the ground functional this, but he does so, so often and in ways that go way beyond what is immediately necessary. It’s hard to see that there’s any true will at the UN to regard Hamas, a terrorist organization. Again, if you look at the most active official on this issue, who’s Francesca Benze, who writes every single day and who speaks all around the world, she openly supports Hamas. Spoke in November, 2022 at a conference organized by Hamas leader bas Naim. And so most relevant UN officials, many of them are treating Hamas as legitimate and that can never be excused.

John Donvan
Alright, we’re going to take a break and when we come back, we will go further into our conversation around this question. UN efforts in the Middle East, helping or hurting. I’m John Donvan. This is open to debate and we’ll be right back. Can you give me just one moment? I just want to communicate with a member of

Speaker 3
Our staff who has sent me a note. Okay. Welcome

John Donvan
Back to Open to Debate. We’re taking on the question UN efforts in the Middle East, helping or hurting. I’m John Donvan and I’m joined by our debaters Richard Gowan UN and multilateral diplomacy director at the International Crisis Group. And Hillel knew executive director of WATCH in a little while, very shortly. In fact, we’re going to have some other members of, sorry, I’m going to rephrase this. Lemme take that from the top, please.

Speaker 3
It’s nice that I get to do this and I don’t give you

John Donvan
Guys the same. Thank you for your forbearance moderator’s privilege. Welcome back to Open to Debate. I’m John Donvan and we are taking on the question UN efforts in the Middle East, helping or hurting. I am joined by our debater is Richard Gowan, who is UN and multilateral diplomacy director at the International Crisis Group and Hillel ER executive director of watch. In a few minutes we’re going to be joined by some other voices who will be asking some questions. But I have a question that we haven’t gotten to yet that came up in the opening and that has to do with un peacekeepers. There’s a force that was placed in Lebanon, Southern Lebanon in 1978 following an Israeli incursion. It’s known as il, the United Nations International Force in Lebanon, some 10,000 troops from more than 40 countries that have been there all of this time to be kind of a buffer and a monitor. And in theory, peacekeepers, although often been criticized for not keeping the peace. But you made the case, Richard, that their role is important, it’s vital, it’s doing something. Can you go deeper on that and then I’d like to let Hillel respond to it.

Richard Gowan
Well, firstly, just to say it’s actually the UN interim force in Lebanon, and that again tells you how these things,

John Donvan
These

Richard Gowan
Presences can go on much longer than people

John Donvan
Realize. So it wasn’t, yeah, very good correction. And I think we need to leave that in the edit for my mistake.

Richard Gowan
I’m always aware of it. I was born in the same year that it was deployed, so I think myself as the Richard Interim Gowan, but look un peacekeepers in Southern Lebanon, and they’ve been there for a long time. After the 2006 Israeli Hezbollah war, the force was expanded and the idea was that it would help the Lebanese army deploy in areas in southern Lebanon that were controlled by Hezbollah. Now, the Lebanese army until last year has never been able to do that. And so the peacekeepers were left in a bit of a limbo, and there has been a lot of criticism that they stood by while Hezbollah actually strengthened its position in southern Lebanon. Now, the peacekeepers would say it wasn’t our mandate to fight Hezbollah. We were waiting for the Lebanese army. I understand that the Israeli military found this intolerable. Where we are now after the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah is that once again, the UN is meant to be assisting Lebanese armed forces takeover areas where Hezbollah is exiting. The US strongly supports that there are US officials directly involved in the process. And this time around it might just work. And if that is the case, then I think the UN will have made a real contribution to Israeli security as well as to Lebanese security. We’ll have to see what transpires. Hello.

Hillel Neuer
Look, IL gave a lot of hope when they were initially created. And over the years, certainly after 2006, there was a very strong resolution that was adopted to put an end to the second Lebanon war resolution 1701. And the gist of it was that Hezbollah would have to be disarmed south of the Litani river and people hope that un nil would play an important role. And of course it also required action by the Lebanese forces. Sadly, in that time, we can see now that IL did very little in terms of helping to disarm Hezbollah. And in fact, it seems that they turned a blind eye or maybe even did worse. Hezbollah when Hezbollah attacked Israel on October 8th. So one day after Hamas launched the massacre of October 7th and killed about 1200 Israelis. The next day, Hezbollah launched their own attack guided by Iran funded Iran, armed and trained by Iran.

Hillel Neuer
And when Hezbollah attacked, they attacked with well over 10,000 missiles and other rockets fired in Israelis. They displaced tens of thousands of Israelis in the north. Many of them have still not been able to return home, and they did so from areas where you have thousands of UNFI peacekeepers. And keep in mind, IL peacekeepers are not only those from the global south, what we used to call the third world, but they include those from leading European countries, many from Italy and other countries. And they basically, it turns out that for nearly two decades they did next to nothing. And it seems that in fact, worse it seems that IL allowed Hezbollah funded by the IRGC to use their outposts as hiding places that IL turned a blind eye as underneath their very noses. Hezbollah built terror tunnels. These are deep terror tunnels. I saw them, but I saw them in the Northern Israel, but they require a lot of work.

Hillel Neuer
So you’re talking about heavy machinery, terror tunnels were built rockets, thousands of rockets were placed in homes all across South Lebanon and Shiite villagers homes. And IL of course saw all of this happening. But on the rare occasions where they did try to intervene, Hezbollah responded very aggressively, even killed a few unifil peacekeepers back in the day. And so the message for the Italians who have beautiful tailored uniforms, they’re not going to die for Israelis or for others, and they want to return intact and Hezbollah kind of like a mafia, gave them the message, if you dare to intervene and do your mandate, you’re going to wind up in body backs. And it seems that sadly,

John Donvan
I just wanted to jump in with, I have some experience reporting on IL who’s second initial. I got incorrect from going back to the 1980s. And in particular, I spent time among the Irish, the Irish contingent. And what I recall at that time that in addition to everything that you’re depicting happened subsequently, that the Israelis felt that they were supportive, that they were in a sense tilting towards people who were fighting against Israel. The Lebanese felt the opposite, that they didn’t trust nil either, and felt that there was intelligence information being shared with the Israelis and they were kind of in the middle on this sort of thing. And I’m wondering, is this just the lot of being a peacekeeper when you’re in the middle and it’s not really your conflict that you’re going to lose the support of both sides?

Hillel Neuer
Well, if we look at their language, we can see Unif Hill also communicates. They have a Twitter account, they x.com. They will routinely condemn Israel if Israel acts in their vicinity. But when they refer to Hezbollah, it’s usually some euphemism like an armed non-state entity. We see that they’re very hesitant to even criticize or condemn Hezbollah. And you have testimonies by people inside IL who have said that they routinely, they tell Hezbollah when they would patrol and Hezbollah, they had some kind of tacit arrangement where Hezbollah allowed, sorry, where IL allowed Hezbollah to do their dirty work. And the facts speak for themselves. IL is situated in Lebanon. Hezbollah controlled the entire area to the detriment not only of Israelis, but of the Lebanese, Hezbollah destroyed Lebanon. Hezbollah destroyed Lebanon.

John Donvan
Richard, come on in your response. A lot said there.

Richard Gowan
Yeah, and actually many points I would agree on. I think that it is true that Hezbollah has succeeded in menacing peacekeepers over the years. And I recall late 2022, an Irish peacekeeper was killed, I think because the Irish was seen to be a little too forward in their approach to some Hezbollah actions. If you go back to 2006 and the expansion of the force, I think for a time the Israelis were quite happy that Hez sort of created something of a security blanket that it did get in the way. Sorry, UNIFIL created something of a security blanket. It did get in the way of Hezbollah operations. It did sort of dampen down what Hezbollah could do by 20 22, 20 23, yes, it was clear that that was no longer the case. And Hezbollah’s presence had sort of grown hugely. The question now is after Israel has struck some very significant blows against Hezbollah, can IL help with the sort of post ceasefire stabilization working with the Lebanese armed forces? As I say, I think it is just striking that for all the complaints Israel accepts that IL is the one international framework they have to work with,

Richard Gowan
But there isn’t an alternative.

John Donvan
I want to do a pivot in the program now to bring in some other voices, people who have been listening to the debate and who know this topic because they think about it and write about it. And the first person I want to welcome is Natalie Econo. Natalie is a research analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Natalie, thank you for your patience in listening to the debate so far, and we’d love to hear what your question is for our debaters.

Speaker 6
Yeah, thank you for having me. So Richard, at the beginning of the debate, you outlined several functions that the UN is supposed to play in the Middle East and specifically in Gaza. Hillel, you said that you think the Palestinians need to come in and start fulfilling those roles themselves. In my assessment, the Israelis are at minimum wary of allowing the Palestinian authority into Gaza at this point given the problems that the Palestinian authority has right now in the West Bank. So if the Palestinian authority can’t go into Gaza and Ara can’t continue providing services in Gaza, what alternatives do you see for providing services to the Palestinians once the war wraps up?

Hillel Neuer
Look, I think you’re right. You’ve touched on a conundrum, which is that what are the next steps? Not clear what the next steps are when on the one hand, America back in 2006 or so wanted elections and Condoleezza Rice pressured, this was the George W. Bush administration, pressured Israel to allow elections. Israel said, you’re going to have elections. Hamas is going to win. You’re going to get one man, one woman, one vote, one time. And that’s what happened. Actually, the same thing happened with the PA. President Abbas, I think is now in the 20 or 21st year of his four year term. So you have a problem in Gaza. If you have elections, Hamas gets elected, and today Hamas controls Gaza. If you hand it over to the Palestinians, which Israel is currently only in a small part of Gaza. So effectively Hamas is controlling large parts of Gaza.

Hillel Neuer
And my point was that I don’t think RA helps anything. That was the main point. And it comes back to something that Richard had touched on, which is that RA provides a stability. They’re better than the alternative. I don’t think they are. I agree with Richard that whoever leaves, whoever enters that space, certainly in the near term, is entering a Hamas controlled zone, whatever UN agency would be there or whatever Palestinian agency would be there. It is basically a Hamas controlled zone. And their minds have been poisoned. Hamas, brainwashing of demonizing Israelis, and people have been brainwashed. So it’s true. However, my main point was that the UN shouldn’t be giving their international legitimacy to this. And that’s very significant by the UN being there and legitimizing that narrative. It’s one thing for Ammas to say, our goal is to destroy Israel, but RA in a neat way, basically whitewashes that and legitimizes it.

Hillel Neuer
RA says the UN is with you. The international donors give you money for that pathological agenda, which is not to build Gaza for Gaza, but it’s to build up an army and enter Israel. So I think at the end of the day, I’ll just finish one sentence. I think at the end of the day, I’d rather it be clear as day if Gaza is Hamas, and if the schools are Hamas, we’ll know that it is, but they won’t be telling us that this is some kind of UN agency UN school that’s dedicated to peace and human rights when it’s the opposite.

Richard Gowan
Richard, I mean, I fear that we may end up with a sort of broken backed humanitarian effort in Gaza. Israel has laid out two alternatives to ra. One is that other UN agencies like the World Food Program could take over relief efforts. That would work to a degree. The World Food Program could keep getting food into Gaza. That’s its expertise. But you have to remember that RA has also been doing things like sanitation, like trash collection, like running health centers. And there actually is no other UN agency that I think has the capabilities to take on all those tasks. And then the alternative to the UN is that you bring in private contractors. There are a lot of private contractors who I think hope to get quite a lot of money in post-war Gaza. But again, I don’t actually think that any of those contractors could fulfill all the tasks that Dun Rah has fulfilled. I think they would be highly susceptible to penetration. So I worry that we end up with a much diminished level of assistance to the people of Gaza and the people of Gaza. Hillel describes their mentality, but I think they’re also just hungry, and I think they also just want peace. And if they’re left without proper services, then we are just creating the resentments and the anger that will lead to violence down the road.

John Donvan
Natalie, thank you for that. Excellent question. And I want to welcome Sarah Yerkes. Sarah is the senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Sarah, thank you for joining us and please come in with your question.

Speaker 7
Thank you so much. So as you both have been discussing, there’s not one single un, there are many different bodies and iterations that are playing myriad roles from peacekeeping to humanitarian support in the Middle East. And I agree with Hillel that the United States has played an important role in some specific areas such as diplomacy. But I can say as someone who has worked on these issues within the US government, that the US is not sufficient or prepared to take on all of the roles the UN is playing in the Middle East, particularly given the recent destruction of U-S-A-I-D and massive cuts to foreign assistance. And I also sort of disagree with the point that the Palestinians, I don’t think they’re financially or politically prepared to take over the numerous UN functions, although I agree with you both that I think you both have made the same point, that the goal is a thriving, economically viable Palestinian state living side by side with a thriving, secure, economically viable Israel. So the question that I have for you both, one thing we haven’t touched on is one of the UN alternatives that currently exists, which is the multilateral force and observers in Sinai. This was established as an alternative to the UN peacekeeping force based on negotiations between Egypt and Israel to monitor their PEACE treaty. And I would say that it has arguably more credibility than some of the UN bodies in the region. So do you think that the MFO could be a model for elsewhere in the Middle East, and how would you compare its performance

John Donvan
To other peacekeeper? So just to clarify for people, after the Camp David Accords, when Israel and Egypt reached a piece of cord, a kind of buffer force, smallish buffer force was put into the Sinai, which is where Israel meets Egypt. They’ve been there since the late seventies, I believe. Is that correct? And how many people are we talking about and what nations are represented?

Speaker 7
There’s 13 different nations represented. So it’s a smaller force.

John Donvan
It’s based out of home. When you say MFO, you’re referring to them and very, very importantly for your point, they’re not, it’s a different group. So you’re asking what about that as a solution? I take that first to Hello,

Hillel Neuer
Look for the Gaza Strip. Let’s be realistic. First, it was mentioned that there should be two states for two people. That’s the ideal. The reality now is no one in Israel, including, I would say 90% of those who historically were major activists for two-state solution. They’re not calling it for that today because it was the peace activists on the Gaza border who were dedicating their lives to helping people in Gaza who used to drive over to the border with Gaza and bring Palestinians to hospitals. They were the ones who were massacred in front of their families. They were the ones who were taken hostage. So the idea that tomorrow anyone is going to grant sovereignty and allow groups like Hamas or even the pa, which continues to fund terrorists, if you get convicted for terrorism, it’s not just Hamas that supports you. The Palestinian authority gives money, has been giving millions of dollars to the families of those who are convicted for terrorism against Israelis. So most Israelis tomorrow are not willing to allow Palestinian state perhaps in the future when the areas deified. When I was in Congress, representative Daryl Isa said to me, he said, after World War II America and other countries helped to dify Germany and that allowed them to move forward. Sadly, in Gaza today, the mentality is of total destruction of Jews. We are hearing atrocities.

John Donvan
So hill, I’m just jumping in the interest of time. Your answer is that having an MFO as opposed to UN forces, that’s not at this point a viable alternative for the

Hillel Neuer
Reasons that yes, there is no country or combination of countries that are going to fight habas to protect Israelis.

John Donvan
Richard, I’m going to go to un. We need you to be brief. Just so that we hit time. I apologize.

Richard Gowan
Well, we finally found something which Hillel and I a hundred percent agree upon. So that’s progress. I don’t think, as I said in my opening remarks that in Gaza or indeed in southern Lebanon, there’s any coalition that is willing to take on the risks of putting boots on the ground. I just don’t think NATO countries who obviously are currently very focused on Ukraine want to put in forces at scale in Gaza. And I think Arab militaries are very, very nervous about suggestions. They go into Gaza because they are very scared of the optics of Arab soldiers or Arab police having to suppress Palestinian protests. It would cause huge blowback. So I’m afraid that one can think of lots of different models, but it’s very hard to know who would provide the personnel.

John Donvan
So I really appreciate that question. It got an interesting point onto the table. So thank you very much for joining us, and now we’re going to bring it around to our closing round. And our closing round is where each of our two debaters gets a chance to make a closing statement to one more time, try to persuade you to their side of the argument. Again, the question is, is the UN helping or hurting in the Middle East? And Richard, you are up first with your closing, or is yours?

Richard Gowan
I think what has come through this conversation is that actually Hillel is a great idealist about the un, and I am a pragmatist. I would fully agree that the UN is not living up to all its ideals in the Middle East, and I would actually agree with the idea that in some cases, maintaining a UN presence in parts of the Middle East Elongates prolongs conflict rather than resolving conflict. But I also don’t see, as we’ve been discussing credible alternatives for helping the people of the Palestinian Territories or many of their neighbors in humanitarian terms or in security terms to the un. I think that the UN, for all its imperfections remains the one body that is able to provide the lifesaving assistance and in some cases security assistance that is necessary in the region. I wish that the UN could do that job better, but I think that we should not blame humanitarian workers for the fact that we cannot find a political solution to the long running conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Richard Gowan
Ultimately, it comes down to Israel and to the Palestinian leadership to find a political way out of this crisis. I agree with Hillel that it doesn’t look like there is much appetite at the moment to find a political way out of the crisis. Based on a two-state solution. And so in the absence of that political will, I think we are left with a reality that it falls to the UN hold the ring to keep people alive and to maintain a minimum degree of stability going forward for a lot of civilians who have been isolated and who have been let down. And I think that’s true also for Israeli civilians who deserve to be protected and the UN is there to do that.

John Donvan
Thank you very much Richard and Hillel. You get the last word with your closing statement once again to remind people, you are arguing that the UN efforts in the Middle East are hurting.

Hillel Neuer
The UN was founded on noble principles and to promote humanitarianism human rights security for all. Sadly, when it comes to the Arabis Israel conflict, the UN is not the firefighter. They are the arsonists. If you look at UN R, which we’ve been talking about, the whole point of the agency is to dismantle Israel. The Palestinians and the Hamas terrorists who invaded Israel were mostly educated by RA and they were acting out what they were taught. The UN is acting in the name of humanitarian, but actually they are only encouraging war and terrorism. They’re leading expert on the issue so-called is someone named Francesca Albanese, who every day promotes the false libel that Israel is committing genocide. She knows that this is used to attack Jews around the world. She is not being a firefighter, she’s being an arsonist. And you know the group, if you dare to speak out against what the UN is doing.

Hillel Neuer
Because if you say that the UN is incentivizing Hamas, because every time Hamas attacked Israel from civilian areas committing a double war crime, inviting Israel to attack civilian areas to stop the rockets, that’s what the Human Rights Council has done repeatedly over two decades creating these commissions of inquiry that only incentivize Hamas time and again. And if you call this out, you are punished. We are the dissenting voice at the Human Rights Council. My organization watch and for speaking out, for calling out the fact that there’s a special agenda item focused only on demonizing Israel. We were attacked the head of the Human Rights Council bureaucracy, a man named Eric ti instructed his employees to remove us from speakers lists, to manipulate the speaker’s lists that we wouldn’t speak. He instructed his employees to go on the internet and say defamatory things against me. All of this was confirmed in an affidavit signed by Emma Riley, his own employee. So sadly, the un, not only does it incentivize AMAs legitimize AMA terrorism, but if you dare to speak out, you will be attacked and censored. And that’s very sad for what the UN was meant to be.

John Donvan
Thank you Hillel. And what I want to say to both of you is thank you very, very much for taking part in this debate and for the manner in which you conducted it. As I said in the beginning, I know that you’ve had some been a cross purposes on social media. This was the first time you were able to address one another directly and you did so with the civility that we aim for at Open to Debate and particularly for this series that we’ve been developing a series of debates around developments in the Middle East. So one more time. To both of you, thank you so much for joining us on Open to Debate. Thank you

Hillel Neuer
Very much. Thank you for having me.

John Donvan
And I also want to thank Sarah and Natalie for the great questions you brought into the program, which move us into even more interesting directions. And I want to also thank you, our audience for tuning into this episode of Open to Debate as a nonprofit that is working to combat extreme polarization through what you just saw, civil debate. Our work is made possible by listeners like you, by the Rosen Krantz Foundation and by supporters of Open to Debate. Robert Rosen Krantz is our chairman. Our CEO is Clea Connor Lia Matthow is our chief content Officer. Elizabeth Kitzenberg is our Chief Advancement Officer. Michelle Debreceni is Director of Marketing. This episode was produced by Alexis Pancrazi, Jessica Glazer and Marlette Sandoval, Editorial and Research by Gabriella Mayer, Andrew Lipson and Max Fulton provided production support. The Open to Debate team also includes Annalisa Cochrane, Gabrielle Ianucelli, Rachel Kemp, Eric Gross, Linda Lee, Mary Ragus, Tom Bunting, and Vlad Virtonen, Damon Whittemore mixed. This episode, our theme music is by Alex Kliment. And I’m John Donvan. We’ll see you next time on Open To Debate.