In the News
B’nai B’rith Director of U.N. and Intercommunal Affairs David Michaels spoke with JNS about being berated at the U.N. Human Rights Council for calling out Iran’s genocidal threats—while the council stayed silent on Tehran’s calls to destroy Israel. His remarks highlight the U.N.’s dangerous double standard against Israel. Read Michaels’ full comments at JNS.org.
The double standard “just shows how detached from reality this most important of human rights bodies is,” David Michaels, of B’nai B’rith, told JNS.
Jürg Lauber, the Swiss ambassador to the United Nations, used his privilege as president, for 2025, of the U.N. Human Rights Council to repeatedly chide experts addressing the council and tell them to maintain “necessary dignity and respect.”
He opted to do so only when pro-Israel speakers referred to the Iranian regime’s documented offenses and not when critics of the Jewish state accused it of crimes.
David Michaels, director of U.N. and intercommunal affairs at B’nai B’rith International, told JNS that he wasn’t surprised to be berated as he addressed the council, given its “track record.”
“The council has a long history of chiding and interrupting speakers, particularly from the pro-Israel side, whether that’s member states or the chair,” Michaels told JNS.
Michaels, whose pre-recorded video message was played before the council on Tuesday, told JNS he followed Lauber’s responses in real time.
He told the body that the U.N. Commission of Inquiry’s latest report about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—which claims that Israel is conducting a Gazan “extermination” campaign—“accuses Israel and Israel alone of undermining another people’s identity, survival and ties to a land.”
“It accuses Israel and Israel alone of the crime of ‘extermination,’” he said in the recorded message, “and it accuses Israel and Israel alone of possible ‘genocidal intent.’” He added that the council had yet to discuss explicit Iranian regime threats to destroy Israel.
The U.N. Human Rights Council created the so-called Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, which several U.N. member states have denounced. The commission is assigned to probe the “root causes” of the conflict, and critics have said it has an oversized budget and staffing compared to other U.N. commissions. JNS has reported that all three of the commission’s members have been credibly accused of Jew-hatred.
With Navi Pillay, chair of the Commission of Inquiry, present on Tuesday, Michaels urged those reading its reports to compare the ideology, rhetoric and peace overtures emanating from Jerusalem and Tehran.
“If this COI were interested in the root causes of conflict, it would show some interest in the open intentions of those who chant, ‘death to America, death to Israel,’” Michaels said in his pre-recorded remarks, of chants by Iranian regime officials and terror proxies.
After the 90-second message, Lauber said, “I would like to request all participants to deal with the issues we are dealing with in this council with the necessary dignity and respect.”
“I call upon all participants to ask questions or make comments in relation to the scope of the current dialogue,” he added, sitting next to Pillay. He didn’t say which part or parts of the recorded message were disrespectful or beyond the scope.
As other speakers accused Israel of a wide range of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and called for sanctions and embargoes against the Jewish state, he said only “thank you” at the end of their remarks.
Michaels said such actions hurt the council’s standing and “any perception of seriousness” the council might try to convey, “even more than it has been already.”
“There’s something illuminating about that type of moment,” he told JNS. “To suggest that Iran’s role in the region—including Iran’s role in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, its sponsorship of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, among other pieces of the puzzle—is irrelevant and beyond the scope of a discussion on the root causes of conflict, it just shows how detached from reality this most important of human rights bodies is.”
Watch the full interaction here.
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