UK puts UN Human Rights Council ‘on notice’ over anti-Israel action

The UK has joined the US in threatening the UNHRC over its actions against Israel.

British officials put the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) “on notice” Friday after it passed a series of resolutions singling out Israel for its policies towards the Palestinians, while ignoring other countries’ true human rights violations.

“Today we are putting the Human Rights Council on notice,” UK Ambassador Julian Braithwaite stated during the closing moments of its latest session.

The group approved four resolutions that condemned Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians and called on the Jewish state to return control of the Golan Heights to Syria.

“If things do not change, in the future we will adopt a policy of voting against all resolutions concerning Israel’s conduct,” Braithwaite said.

The UK’s statement comes three days after the terror attack in London that killed four people and injured dozens more. The attacks resembled the Palestinian car-ramming and stabbing attacks that have plagued Israel in recent years.

“According to the [Middle East] Quartet’s report last year, there were 250 terrorist attacks, leading to the deaths of at least 30 Israelis,” Braithwaite said. “Yet neither ‘terrorism’ nor ‘incitement’ were a focus of this week’s council discussions and resolutions. This is not acceptable.”

Braithwaite also took issue with Agenda Item Seven, saying that “nowhere is the disproportionate focus on Israel starker and more absurd than in the case of today’s resolution on the occupation of Syria’s Golan. Syria’s regime butchers and murders its people on a daily basis. But it is not Syria that is a permanent standing item on the council’s agenda; it is Israel.”

Similarly, the US has recently threatened to pull out of the UNHRC if it continues its anti-Israel bias. This week, the US also announced it would boycott the UNHRC’s “Agenda Item Seven” session, which mandates that the council discuss alleged Israeli human rights abuses against the Palestinians at every session.

American envoy Erin Barclay told the UNHRC earlier this month that Washington was considering its future engagement with the Council “with an eye toward reform,” saying that its “obsession with Israel” threatens the Council’s reliability.

“In order for this Council to have any credibility, let alone success, it must move away from its unbalanced and unproductive positions,” she stated.

The US contributes 22 percent of the UN’s budget, and has been discussing whether to cut back some of the funding.

The UNHRC is infamously biased against Israel, with nearly half of its resolutions focused solely on Israel while it ignores war, strife and atrocities committed around the globe. Israeli leaders and officials have cited the UNHRC for its “obsessive hostility” toward Israel and “one-sided mandate.”

Over the past 10 years, the UNHRC has passed 62 resolutions condemning Israel. Meanwhile, the world’s worst human rights abusers in Syria, Iran, and North Korea received far fewer condemnations.

By: JNS.org and World Israel News Staff

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