State Department slams Human Rights Council for ‘longstanding bias’ against Jewish state that ‘threatens its credibility’
The US on Monday issued a strongly worded statement accusing a United Nations body of longstanding bias against Israel.
Amid threats from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to withdraw entirely from the United Nations Human Rights Council, the State Department announced it would boycott the council’s entire Monday discussion about alleged human rights abuses committed by Israel and vote against any resolutions that came from it.
“The United States strongly and unequivocally opposes the existence of the UN Human Rights Council’s Agenda Item Seven: ‘Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories,’” acting spokesperson Mark Toner said in a statement.
Agenda Item Seven is a permanent fixture requiring the council to discuss three times each year any alleged abuses of human rights committed by Israel against Palestinians. Toner said that the item threatens the credibility of the council.
Secretary of State-designate Rex Tillerson testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2017, at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
“Today’s actions in the Council are yet another reminder of that body’s longstanding bias against Israel,” he said. “No other nation has an entire agenda item dedicated to it at the Council. The continued existence of this agenda item is among the largest threats to the credibility of the Council. It does not serve the interests of the Council to single out one country in an unbalanced matter.”
Israel is the only country-specific issue that has a permanent place on the council’s agenda, an opening for discussion about the Jewish state that often sees anti-Israel invective delivered at council meetings from Arab and Muslim states.
“Later this week, the United States will vote against every resolution put forth under this agenda item and is encouraging other countries to do the same,” Toner said.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon also slammed to council.
“The UN Human Rights Council has turned harming Israel into its raison d’etre,” he said. “The time has come to end to this shameful, and even embarrassing, chapter in the history of the UN. Members of the Council must put an end to the bias in this absurd body.”
Michael Lynk, the UN’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, on October 28, 2016 (Courtesy)
Earlier, Michael Lynk, the special rapporteur on Palestinian territories held by Israel since 1967, warned that the “illegal settlement enterprise has moved at an alarming pace” this year.
The US has always boycotted the discussion of the agenda item on Israel, and for the past several years Jerusalem has encouraged other nations to do the same.
Last month, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley called out the Human Rights Council for “breathtaking double standards” and “outrageously biased resolutions” against Israel, during a press conference after her first meeting with the UN Security Council.
US United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks at the Security Council meeting on February 21, 2017 at UN Headquarters in New York. (AFP PHOTO / KENA BETANCUR)
Earlier this month US envoy Erin Barclay said the United States’ commitment to human rights “is stronger than ever.” However, she slammed the council for its focus on Israel.
“No other nation is the focus of an entire agenda item… The obsession with Israel… is the largest threat to this council’s credibility,” said Barclay, a career diplomat. “It limits the good we can accomplish by making a mockery of this council. The United States will oppose any effort to delegitimize or isolate Israel.
US envoy Erin Barclay addresses the United Nations Human Rights Council March 1, 2017 (Screen capture: UNHRC)
Last week Tillerson sent a letter to nine nonprofit groups in which he explained that the United States may quit the council unless it makes reforms, Foreign Policy reported.
In the meantime, Tillerson said, the US would reiterate its “strong principled objection to the Human Rights Council’s biased agenda against Israel.”
Tillerson wrote that the US was concerned as well about membership in the council of countries accused of human rights violations, such as China, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Should US President Donald Trump’s administration opt out of the UNHRC, it wouldn’t be the first to shun the body.
When the UNHRC was created out of the discredited UN Human Rights Commission in 2006, then-US president George W. Bush refused to join the new group, believing that it would lack credibility and that, like its predecessor, it would allow human right violators to become members.
In 2009, president Barack Obama reversed that decision, hoping to improve the UNHRC.
“With others, we will engage in the work of improving the UN human rights system,” then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton said at the time.
Bury the UN with David Rockefeller.
@ Robin Rosenblatt:
A 4 yr.old female Long Horn was sold for over 3,000,000. She had extraordinary horns.
http://www.rightsidesd.com/?p=29562
It is the utmost of importance that Jews, and non-Jews around the world, ” Give the Trump administration the time ” to prove itself. Right now, whatever comes out of the media is so turned around to the negative, instead of to the positives, it is supposed to be, if given the chance.
This would be like taking the masses and media back to grade 1, and teaching them a whole new philosophy, to remove what they have been brainwashed with of late.
Shalom,
I could not believe this. I was invited as a guest to this play. The Jews thought it was funny. They make Trump, the Haman, and then made him the anti semite and a Racist. The whole play was lies
“Last week, American Jews did the most Anti Semite play for purim since the last days of Hitler here in Sebastopol, California. Viva Las Vegas, the Whole Megillah.”