Masih Alinejad exposed the UN’s moral bankruptcy in its silence on Iran

Remember how the war in Gaza produced the increasingly swivel-eyed weaponisation of the mechanisms of the UN against the Jewish state, culminating in the fabrication of charges of “famine”, even though the only pictures of supposedly starving Gazans turned out to be people with serious health disorders?

Remember the libelous endorsement of the laughably false charge of “genocide”? Remember the notoriously antisemitic conference in Durban in 2001, and the adoption of the “Zionism is racism” resolution 3379 in 1975?

There’s a good deal more, but you get the gist. But despite all the examples cited above, and the reams of other evidence besides, the UN has continued to enjoy a sterling reputation in the eyes of the man in the street, which is why it has been such an effective weapon against Israel.

Sometimes, however, a sudden change of light makes you see things more clearly. That moment came on Thursday, when the Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad, who had been targeted three times for assassination by the regime, was invited by the US to address the UN Security Council.

It was notable that this was the first time that august body had convened to discuss the uprisings in Iran since the unrest began some weeks ago. It was notable, too, that the secretary-general had been sparing in his criticism of the regime, and had certainly not accused it of genocide or called for its overthrow.

Equally notable was the fact that an Iranian representative, Afsaneh Nadipour, was elected as a member of the advisory committee of the UN Human Rights Council last year, and the regime had bizarrely been allowed to chair the UN Conference on Disarmament in 2024.

Anyway, the brave Alinejad was scathing. “The secretary-general has not spoken publicly against the massacre,” she said. “Secretary-general, why are you afraid of the Islamic Republic?”

On social media, she posted afterwards: “I am a woman from a small village in northern Iran. Jailed for protesting. Beaten for showing my hair. Expelled from parliament for exposing their corruption. Forced into exile. My sister was paraded on state TV to publicly disown me. My brother was imprisoned as punishment. My mother was interrogated to stop her from expressing love for me. Assassins were sent to New York, three times, to kill me. And now I’m supposed to sit next to them at the UN Security Council.”

Quite. During her testimony, she broke down when reading the names of the protesters who had been killed. The only point of light was footage that later emerged of the Iranian delegate listening to her words. Under the desk, his legs were quivering.

The thing is, they know they’re rumbled. And they know now that we know. But what about the UN itself? Have they realised that their moment has come? Or has it?

Perhaps I’m being overly optimistic in assuming that this was it. Yes, the UN's indulgence of the worst regime in the world, which is the other side of the coin to their obsessive condemnation of the freest nation in the Middle East, has been exposed for all to see. But will it make any difference?

The same could be said of all the hypocrites: the political figures, from the Prime Minister downwards, who either played down the Iranian uprisings or ignored them altogether; the broadcasters who tried their best to look the other way, then claimed – as did Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4’s international editor – that the muted coverage was because “foreign journalists can’t get into Iran”; the actors who didn’t drop a single social media post about the massacres; the silence of Greta Thunberg and Gary Lineker.

It isn’t so much the duplicity of these people that is so nauseating, it’s the fact that in many cases, they don’t even bother to make a perfunctory gesture of concern for the people of Iran. They are hypocrites and they don’t mind who knows it. Why? Because they understand that their supporters don’t care.

We live in a world in which the fight is more important than the facts. Depressingly, I suspect that most people are more concerned with bolstering their existing political biases than standing up against butchery on the streets of Iran.

For a certain kind of person, in 2026, with its 24-hour news cycle, its fragmented news outlets and its social media obsession, a concern for human rights is just a weapon to use against your political opponents. Which is exactly what makes the UN confident that it will get away with it, as they have done ever since the Sixties.

Never Again? How the West Betrayed the Jews and Itself, by Jake Wallis Simons, is out now