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The United Nations’ hostility toward Israel has intensified dramatically since the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, according to Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, who says the tone has been driven largely by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and reflected throughout the organization’s agencies.

Speaking with Arutz Sheva on the sidelines of the JNS International Policy Conference in Jerusalem, Neuer looked back on more than 20 years of monitoring the United Nations and said the organization’s treatment of Israel has deteriorated even further in the aftermath of the Hamas attack.

When asked whether the fight against anti-Israel bias at the UN has become more difficult, Neuer responded, “It’s hard to imagine, but the pathological UN, which obsesses over Israel, got even so much worse after October 7th, in particular because of Antonio Guterres.”

Neuer pointed to comments Guterres made shortly after the Hamas massacre, noting that although the secretary-general condemned the terrorist attack, he also remarked that “the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum.”

“He effectively went on to justify what happened because he enumerated numerous alleged grievances by the Palestinians, basically justifying what they did,” Neuer said.

Asked whether his criticism was aimed solely at Guterres’ rhetoric or also at the UN’s conduct, Neuer said both have contributed to what he described as an increasingly hostile environment.

“It’s statements and actions. He set a tone. UN agencies all around the world have been attacking Israel like never before since October 7th,” he said.

Turning to the recent conflict involving Iran, Neuer argued that UN officials directed their criticism toward Israel and the United States while failing to hold the Iranian regime responsible.

“It was shameless propaganda coming out of Guterres’ office,” he said.

Neuer also commented on a recent confrontation involving Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon during a discussion on sexual violence in armed conflicts.

According to Neuer, Danon was objecting after “the secretary general shamelessly placed Israel on the same list as Hamas.”

He said senior UN official Vanessa Frazier improperly interrupted Danon’s remarks during the meeting in violation of established UN procedures.

“She interrupted him. She started shouting. And she has no right to do that,” Neuer said, arguing that officials would never behave similarly toward representatives of other countries.

“The fact that she had the audacity, the chutzpah, to do that is something they would only do against Israel, and it reflects the message that Guterres is sending around the UN.”

Despite his criticism of the international body, Neuer insisted that engaging at the UN remains essential and dismissed the notion that the diplomatic battle is unwinnable.

“What happened with Iran illustrates the importance of fighting on the political battlefield and the global diplomatic political battlefield,” he said.

“You can win great military victories, but if you’re not winning at the political diplomatic level, in the end, maybe you’re losing.”

Neuer acknowledged that Israel often faces an uphill battle in international institutions, but argued that abandoning those forums would only strengthen its opponents.

“It is a global podium. We do have friends. We need to enable and empower them. You have to fight and make the case,” he said.

As evidence that sustained diplomatic efforts can produce results, Neuer cited several recent developments, including the United States ending funding for UNRWA, Sweden’s decision to cut financial support for the agency, Switzerland’s lower house voting to do the same, U.S. sanctions imposed on UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, and public condemnation of Albanese by 15 countries.

“We need to be there and fight,” Neuer concluded.

Florida has begun dismantling the controversial migrant detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” signaling the end of a high-profile immigration facility in the Everglades that housed more than 22,000 migrants and cost taxpayers over $1.2 billion during its operation.

According to reports from CBS News Miami and other media outlets, contractors responsible for running the facility have been directed to begin a “full demobilization” of the site. Florida Division of Emergency Management Executive Director Kevin Guthrie informed vendors that the state expects the removal of the facility’s infrastructure to move forward quickly. The detention center was constructed at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport deep in the Everglades.

The decision comes just days after the final detainees were transferred to other detention centers because of safety concerns associated with the Atlantic hurricane season. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that no migrants remain at the facility.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said Monday that the detention center had accomplished exactly what it was intended to do.

“I think Alligator Alcatraz actually stayed open longer than it was intentionally planned when it was first conceptualized,” Uthmeier told reporters.

“Now that the federal government is resourced and standing up its own mission, using its own authorities, it is no longer necessary, and the plan has always been to protect the Everglades and take it back to a protected area where it’s not a commercial business, an airport,” he said.

The facility first opened in July 2025 after being built in less than a week on a remote Everglades airstrip. It rapidly became one of the most recognizable symbols of Florida’s aggressive immigration enforcement strategy and was championed by President Donald Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis, and other Republican leaders as a blueprint for large-scale migrant detention.

Designed to assist federal immigration authorities, the center had the capacity to hold thousands of migrants awaiting deportation proceedings. State officials say that more than 22,000 migrants passed through the facility during its time in operation.

DeSantis has repeatedly defended the project, arguing that it played a “huge, huge” role in preventing migrants from being released into communities across Florida. He also emphasized that the detention center was always envisioned as a temporary operation.

Despite support from state leaders, the project faced continuous opposition from environmental organizations, immigrant advocacy groups, and civil rights activists. Critics challenged the facility in court, raising concerns about both detention conditions and the impact of the operation on the environmentally sensitive Everglades.

Although the detainees have been relocated and demolition has begun, environmental advocates say their legal fight is not over. They insist litigation will continue until the site is completely restored to its original condition.

Attorney Paul Schwiep, who represents several organizations opposing the project, said the removal of the migrants is an important first step but stressed that full restoration of the property remains the ultimate goal.

“The goal is to have them do what the governor said they’d do from the outset: Use [the land] temporarily, and that’s apparently run its course now and return the site to the condition it was in before they began to use it for this purpose,” Schwiep said.

Florida officials said the dismantling effort will involve removing fencing, trailers, and other temporary structures that were installed during construction. Once the work is finished, the property is expected to resume its previous role as a training airport.

A new federal lawsuit alleges that some of California’s largest gas station operators illegally worked together through artificial intelligence software to inflate gasoline prices, accusing major fuel retailers of using a shared pricing platform to suppress competition and force motorists to pay more at the pump.

Filed Monday as a proposed class-action lawsuit, the complaint claims that several prominent gas station chains—including Marathon and Circle K—violated California antitrust laws by relying on Kalibrate, a global AI-driven fuel pricing system that allegedly coordinated pricing strategies among competitors.

According to the lawsuit, Kalibrate served as the “central nervous system for a conspiracy to extinguish retail price competition among gas stations,” allowing participating retailers to avoid genuine price competition.

The complaint alleges that Kalibrate’s software actively encouraged stations to keep prices elevated while discouraging operators from lowering them. According to the filing, the program warned that cutting prices could trigger a “downward spiral,” effectively steering users away from competitive pricing.

Rather than independently determining what consumers should pay, the lawsuit claims participating gas stations turned over sensitive pricing, cost, and fuel-volume information to Kalibrate Fuel Pricing. The software then allegedly used that information to recommend pricing strategies that minimized competition among nearby stations and resulted in higher prices for drivers.

The lawsuit comes as Californians continue to pay some of the nation’s highest gasoline prices, with fuel costs climbing even further amid global market disruptions following the outbreak of the Iran war.

Plaintiffs argue that Kalibrate enabled an illegal form of cartel behavior, contending that modern price-fixing no longer requires secret meetings because sophisticated AI software can accomplish the same objective electronically.

One feature highlighted in the complaint, known as “restoration,” allegedly allowed gas stations within a given area to simultaneously increase fuel prices by significant amounts, making coordinated price hikes easier to implement.

The lawsuit cites research indicating that algorithm-based fuel pricing systems raised gasoline prices by an average of approximately six cents per gallon and by as much as 30 cents per gallon in markets where the technology was widely adopted. According to the complaint, even a one-cent increase statewide costs California motorists roughly $134 million every year.

Among the companies named as defendants are BP, Speedway, EG America, Walmart, and Albertsons, which together operate more than 1,700 gas stations throughout California.

The proposed class-action seeks to represent California consumers who purchased gasoline at stations using Kalibrate’s software beginning in June 2022.

The case is the latest in a growing wave of legal challenges targeting software platforms accused of using algorithms to increase prices for consumers across multiple industries.

In recent years, the U.S. Department of Justice has pursued similar antitrust cases against RealPage, which was accused of helping landlords coordinate rent increases, and Agri Stats, which allegedly assisted meatpacking companies in raising grocery prices. Although both federal cases have since been settled, several state attorneys general continue to pursue litigation involving RealPage and various property management firms.

Concern over algorithm-driven pricing has also prompted legislative action. Last year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation explicitly confirming that the state’s antitrust laws apply to pricing algorithms, a legal change that plaintiffs say helped pave the way for the newly filed lawsuit.

{Matzav.com}