Jake Tapper Blasts Human Rights Violators Who Criticized Israel At U.N.

Jake Tapper
(JTA) — Jake Tapper is calling out many of the countries who rebuked President Trump and Israel at the United Nations on Thursday.
After 128 countries voted to condemn Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and eventually move the U.S. embassy there, the Jewish CNN anchor let loose on “The Lead.” He sharply criticized Venezuela, Syria, Yemen, North Korea, Myanmar and other countries he said have “rather questionable records of their own.”
After showing footage of Venezuela’s U.N. representative saying that Trump’s move “imperils global peace,” Tapper excoriated the Latin American country, noting that it is experiencing a severe humanitarian and economic crisis.
“[There’s] violence in the streets, an economy in complete collapse, citizens malnourished, dying children being turned away from hospitals, starving families joining street gangs to scrounge for food,” he said. “On what moral platform does the government of Venezuela stand today?”
Tapper went on to criticize Syria and Yemen, countries that he noted were embroiled in brutal civil wars.
“There are plenty of policies and actions that are perfectly valid to criticize about the United States and about Israel, and certainly whether this [Jerusalem] move will help the peace process in any way seems one of them,” Tapper said. “But listening to these countries, including North Korea and Myanmar and Turkey and China lecturing the United States in any way about human rights and peace might seem a bit much.”
Tapper also showed a graphic that explained how between 2012 and 2015, the U.N. adopted 97 resolutions criticizing one specific country—and Israel was the target of 83 of them.
“You have to ask, is Israel truly deserving of 86 percent of the world’s condemnation, or possibly is something else afoot at the United Nations, something that allows the representative of the Assad government to lecture the U.S. for moving its embassy?” he said.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Politics Meet America’s potential first Jewish second family: Josh Shapiro, Lori, and their 4 kids
- 4
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Jewish students, alumni decry ‘weaponization of antisemitism’ across country
-
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history
-
Opinion Why can Harvard stand up to Trump? Because it didn’t give in to pro-Palestinian student protests
-
Culture How an Israeli dance company shaped a Catholic school boy’s life
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.