The October 7 assault on southern Israel reads like a textbook case of crimes against humanity. Mass murder. Mass rape. Mass kidnapping. Mass hostage-taking. Children used as human shields. Sexual abuse of captives...
We weren’t shocked by the celebrations of Hamas supporters and the Palestinian street, In the immediate aftermath of 10/7. The question was how would supporters of the Palestinians in the halls of power and the media respond?
The first post-10/7 interview with the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) was with a bureau chief of a wire service in Paris, who reflected: “You should know that I am sympathetic with the Palestinian cause. I support a state for Palestinians. But I did not sign up for this…”
But we were naive to think that supporters of the Palestinian cause around the world would react the same way.
Instead, mass rallies with genocidal placards and chants of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “By all means necessary” echoed on the streets of Berlin, Paris, London, Washington, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles – and on scores of North American campuses.
However, many thousands of Hamas thugs were being eliminated by the Israeli military, Hamas still successfully exported and embedded its Jew-hating narrative into the mainstream of Western democracies and America’s finest universities. (To get a full overview of the current situation, please see SWC’s newly released “2023 Top Ten Anti-Semitic Incidents”).
But how and why did “I didn’t sign up for this” become “Yes, but…” excuses for terrorist Hamas? Look no further than an institution that was given $18 billion last year by the US to serve as the front-line defender of human dignity and human rights: the United Nations.
UN's reaction to terrorism
Leading the chorus was no one less than UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. In the aftermath of Hamas’s attacks, he and his colleagues declared that “it is important to also recognize that the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,” alleging that there have been “56 years of suffocating occupation” suffered by the Palestinians and that Hamas’s massacres “did not warrant the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”
It took Guterres 70 days to watch the 43 minutes of video taken by Hamas gunmen of their horrific onslaught of mass murder, rape, mutilation, kidnapping, and hostage-taking. An enraged Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen countered, “There is no place for an even-handed approach. Hamas needs to be wiped off the face of the earth.”
Meanwhile, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese on the Palestinian territories, who is supposed to be an objective observer of the Palestinians, depicts Hamas terrorists as “human rights defenders,” defends the launching of missiles targeting Israeli civilians, and places Hamas on the same moral plane as the Jews who fought the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto.
Albanese also insists that “Israel cannot claim the right of self-defense against a threat that emanates from a territory it occupies, from a territory that is under belligerent occupation.” In her Commission of Inquiry report presented to the UN General Assembly on October 24, she declared that “the oppression and trauma suffered by Palestinian children, half of the Palestinian population under Israeli rule, is a unique stain on the international community.”
What about the deafening global silence over the mass rape, kidnapping, and hostage-taking of Israeli women? If people were looking for outrage from Reem Amsalem, United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, they would be disappointed – she refused to unequivocally condemn Hamas for the sexual abuse of Israeli women that took place during the October 7 massacre and while they were being in Hamas captivity. She dismissed it all as “disinformation.”
The Jordanian-born international human rights advocate flipped the script, declaring that since October 7, “the assault on Palestinian women’s dignity and rights has taken on new and terrifying dimensions,” also alleging that Israel’s “continued assault on the reproductive rights of Palestinian Women and their newborns has been relentless and is particularly alarming,” and accusing the Jewish state of “imposing measures intended to prevent births within a group.”
Meanwhile, Sarah Douglas, the deputy chief for peace, security, and resilience at UN Women, endorsed a string of incendiary claims on social media following Hamas’s October 7 attack. She liked X posts that condemned Israeli "genocide" and claimed the "forces of empire" were teaming up to crush the Palestinian people's "struggle for freedom."
The United Nations Children’s Fund motto “For Every Child” would be more accurate if it said: “For Every Child – Unless You Are an Israeli Jew.” Following the October 7 massacre, UNICEF was largely silent when it came to the execution of 40 Israeli infants and the murder of entire Jewish families by Hamas terrorists. And they made no effort to demand the immediate and unconditional release of the 32 Israeli children kidnapped to Gaza by Hamas.
Instead, their efforts were solely focused on getting humanitarian aid to the Palestinian children in Gaza who also suffer at the hands of Hamas. In fact, contributors to UNICEF discovered that they cannot direct funds to help the tens of thousands of Israeli children displaced and traumatized by Hamas and Hezbollah attacks.
Response from international human rights organizations
Last but not least, there’s The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East – the only refugee agency whose purpose is not to resettle refugees. In 2023, UNRWA has conferred refugee status on nearly six million descendants of the original roughly 700,000 Palestinian refugees – even if they are citizens of other countries! This manipulation allows Palestinians to demand that millions have the “right to return” en masse, which of course, would spell the end of the Jewish state.
Its 2023 budget of $1.63 billion funds UNRWA schools where generations of Palestinian children have been indoctrinated to hate Jews and revere terrorist “martyrs.” Now, the IDF has provided proof that Hamas uses the agency’s schools and adjacent areas to store weapons, including explosive vests fitted for children. UNRWA employees and facilities are part of the Hamas war machine.
Finally, the hubris of the International Red Cross must end. During an in-person meeting with its representatives, Israeli family members begged them to bring medications to their loved ones. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to do the same; all were rebuffed.
This hasn’t stopped the ICRC from visiting Hamas terrorists imprisoned in Israel since October 7 and bringing them forms to fill out so they can receive Palestinian Authority payments for murdering Jews, under their “pay-to-slay Jews” law.
For our 2024 Top Ten to dramatically change, much more must be done to tackle raging antisemitism. Universities need to be named and shamed, and public funds withheld if Jewish students are left to twist in the wind. Social media must stop being the weapon of choice for antisemites, racists, and terrorists. The International Red Cross must finally treat the Jewish people as it treats the rest of the world.
But to consign the Hamas genocidal narrative to the garbage dump of history, two things must happen: an Israeli victory in Gaza and a sea change at the UN. The international body must abort its war against the legitimacy of our people.
If it won’t, then we must demand from democratic nations to rethink the billions they turn over to the UN trusting that the money will be used to bolster its stated mission. In 2023, when it comes to Israel and the Jews, the opposite is too often the case.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper is Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action at the Simon Wiesenthal Center. He also serves as Chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. Dr. Deborah Soffen, a pediatrician, is the SWC children’s advocate.