Israel backs US for slashing UN funding

After the US announced it will cut funding for the notoriously anti-Israel UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, an Israeli official offered full support for the move.

By: AP and World Israel News Staff

President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, says the United States will cut funding for the office of the U.N. human rights chief, the administration’s latest blow against the United Nations.

Bolton announced the move against the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which would lose one of its largest donors. The United States is the U.N.’s largest single donor, providing about 22 percent of its budget.

In an interview Thursday, Bolton said U.S. officials would calculate how much of the U.S. annual budget goes to the rights office and the Human Rights Council, a 47-nation U.N.-backed assembly of nations, and reduce its outlay by that amount.

Ex-Chilean President Michelle Bachelet is set to replace Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein as the High Commissioner for Human Rights next month.

Al-Hussein’s tenure in the role was marked by consistent hostility toward the Jewish state, including calls to boycott Israeli businesses.

In response to the news, Israel’s Strategic Affairs and Public Security Minister, Gilad Erdan, said in a statement, “The UN’s human rights bodies have undermined their founding values by becoming hotbeds of anti-Israel extremism, hate and boycott campaigns,” reported Times of Israel.

“If Ambassador Bolton’s announcement spurs the UN to start investing in exposing the world’s worst violators of human rights, rather than in delegitimizing the Middle East’s one true democracy, millions around the world will benefit,” Erdan added.

Gilad ErdanJohn BoltonUnited Nations Human Rights Council