Israel on Wednesday harshly condemned the UN Human Rights Council for a series of resolutions condemning the Jewish state, calling the international body “obsessive, prejudiced and anti-Israel”.
“Today, the Human Rights Council has once again proved to be an anti-Israel, discriminatory and hypocritical body,” Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi tweeted on Wednesday night, after the adoption of four resolutions criticizing Israel on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“I am grateful to all countries that have chosen not to lend a hand to this circus and to systematic discrimination against Israel,” said Ashkenazi.
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One of the resolutions contained 19 paragraphs criticizing Israel’s policies, with only one referring to rockets fired at the Jewish state, a UN watchdog said. It was adopted by 22 votes to 6 against and 8 abstentions.
The Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Efrayim in the West Bank, in the Jordan Valley, June 30, 2020. (AP Photo / Oded Balilty)
France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy supported Tuesday’s motion, which expressed “grave concern over reports of serious violations of human rights and serious violations of international humanitarian law, including possible war crimes and crimes against humanity, in the Palestinian Territory Busy, including East Jerusalem. ”
The resolution also denounced Israel’s “preferential treatment” of settlers in the West Bank over Palestinians.
“The vote yesterday and today on four anti-Israel resolutions at the UNHRC represents a moral stain for the UN and is further proof of the hypocrisy of the countries that supported these resolutions,” tweeted Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Haiat .
“Instead of acting to promote human rights worldwide, the Council continues to engage obsessively and biased against Israel, effectively being a political platform in the hands of countries that have absolutely no connection with human rights”, added the spokesman.
One of the other three resolutions passed on Wednesday was on Israel’s “human rights” policy on the Golan Heights – the strategic plateau that was captured from Syria during the 1967 Six Day War and formally annexed in 1981, a movement not recognized by the majority of the international community.
A photo taken from the Syrian city Ain al-Tineh shows the Druze city of Majdal Shams in the Israeli Golan Heights on March 26, 2019. (Louai Beshara / AFP)
The other two motions were on the “Palestinians’ right to self-determination” and Israel’s settlement policies.
“The votes are further proof that the UNHRC is distorted and needs fundamental reforms. The State of Israel will continue to promote its democratic values and protect its interests in the international arena, ”said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
UN Watch, a Geneva-based non-profit organization that monitors the world body’s alleged anti-Israel bias, issued a statement condemning the resolution passed on Tuesday.
“The fact that this resolution was written literally by the Palestinians, with co-sponsors that include Pakistan on behalf of Islamic states, as well as the Maduro regime in Venezuela, is clear from the widespread condemnation of the text to Israeli actions, without any mention. to Hamas, Islamic Jihad or the Palestinian Authority, ”said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.
UNHRC has just adopted the resolution on “Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
• 19 pars criticize Israel
• 1 criticizes rockets against Israel, but does not mention the name of Hamas
• No mention of the oppression of Hamas and the PAShame on France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands for joining the jackals. pic.twitter.com/E5Pr0J5Wla
– Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) March 23, 2021
Bahrain, a Gulf nation that recently established ties with Israel, did not attend Tuesday’s vote. The countries that voted against the motion were Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Malawi and Togo. In addition, the agency noted that India switched from a “yes” vote last year to abstention on Tuesday. Denmark, Japan, Mexico, Poland, South Korea and Uruguay also voted in favor of the resolution.
Hillel Neuer (Michal Fattal / Flash 90)
“If the resolution was really about Palestinian human rights, it would not have completely ignored the abuses of the Palestinian Authority, including arbitrary deaths, torture and arbitrary detention,” said Neuer.
Israel has strongly criticized the rights council over the years, saying it focuses disproportionately on the Jewish state, while ignoring abuses of autocratic regimes and governments – and even accepting them as members.
A permanent element on the council’s agenda is item 7 (“the human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories”), which since its adoption in 2007 has chosen Israel for perpetual censorship, a measure that no other country faces in UN body.
Illustrative: delegates arrive at the Human Rights Council assembly room at the United Nations European headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, June 2, 2009. (AP Photo / Keystone / Salvatore Di Nolfi)
Former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the board in 2018 because of his disproportionate focus on Israel and because he failed to meet an extensive list of reforms demanded by the then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley.
Under the new Biden government, the United States announced that it would return to the council, but emphasized that it was “flawed and in need of reform”.
