Qatar UN Ambassador Loses Bid for Human Rights Forum Chair- Hend Al-Muftah Made Dozens of Antisemitic and Homophobic Comments

Israeli media is report­ing that Qatar’s Ambas­sador to the Unit­ed Nations in Gene­va has lost her bid to become chair of a UN human rights forum after it was revealed she had pre­vi­ous­ly made anti­se­mit­ic and homo­pho­bic com­ments. Accord­ing to the Times of Israel Report, Qatar has been spend­ing lav­ish­ly to cur­ry favor at the UN:

Sep­tem­ber 19, 2022 Qatar’s Ambas­sador to the Unit­ed Nations in Gene­va Hend Al-Muf­tah has lost her bid to become chair of a UN human rights forum, after rev­e­la­tions that she had pre­vi­ous­ly made a series of anti­se­mit­ic and homo­pho­bic com­ments. Qatar had been lob­by­ing to place Al-Muf­tah as chair of the upcom­ing Forum on Human Rights, Democ­ra­cy, and the Rule of Law, set to take place in Novem­ber and open­ing the same week Qatar will con­tro­ver­sial­ly host the FIFA World Cup. How­ev­er, the Qatari bid came unstuck, after UN Watch, an inde­pen­dent human rights mon­i­tor­ing orga­ni­za­tion based in Gene­va, uncov­ered dozens of dis­crim­i­na­to­ry and con­spir­a­to­r­i­al tweets between 2011 and 2021, includ­ing blam­ing Israel for 9/11, call­ing Jews “our ene­mies,” and call­ing gays “dis­gust­ing.” In her place, Bahamas Ambas­sador to the UN Patri­cia Her­manns will chair the forum. UN Watch’s direc­tor, Hil­lel Neuer, praised the deci­sion, say­ing that deny­ing the post to the “ambas­sador of hate” was “the right thing.” “Hend Al-Muf­tah is a rabid anti­semite who for over a decade has been tweet­ing vile hate against Jews and gays while spread­ing malign con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries about West­ern coun­tries. She is the last per­son in the world who should head a UN forum on human rights, democ­ra­cy, and the rule of law,” Neuer said. UN Watch said that Qatar had been mak­ing use of its deep pock­ets to win favor with­in the UN, includ­ing a $20 mil­lion “Hall of Qatar” locat­ed next to the Human Rights Coun­cil Cham­ber in Geneva.

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