The U.S. Might Withdraw from the U.N. Human Rights Council Over This

The United States announced it is strongly considering leaving the United Nations Human Rights Council over its Israeli-bias and “obsession” with Israel.

U.S. Department of State Deputy Assistant Secretary Erin Barclay announced on Wednesday that the U.S. “remains deeply troubled by the Council’s consistent unfair and unbalanced focus on one democratic country, Israel,” and that “In order for this Council to have any credibility, let alone success, it must move away from its unbalanced and unproductive positions.”

She stated that the Trump administration is considering “our future engagements, my government will be considering the Council’s actions with an eye toward reform to more fully achieve the Council’s mission to protect and promote human rights.”

U.N. Director of the Human Rights Watch, Lou Charbonneau, responded to the announcement on Thursday.

“A decision to withdraw would be a misguided and shortsighted step that could significantly set back UN efforts to protect human rights around the world… Withdrawing would do nothing to advance US interests but would merely dampen US influence in the international arena”

The Trump administration has been stringent in reversing the United States’ silence against mistreatment and Israel-bias in the U.N. This was most evident when recently appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley addressed the press following her first Security Council meeting, where she pointed out the Council’s obsession with Israel whilst ignoring nuclear Iran, Hezbollah, Assad’s regime, and ISIS.

“The Security Council is supposed to discuss how to maintain international peace and security,” she said in February. “But at our meeting on the Middle East, the discussion was not about Hezbollah’s illegal build-up of rockets in Lebanon. It was not about the money and weapons Iran provides to terrorists. It was not about how we defeat ISIS. It was not about how we hold Bashar al-Assad accountable for the slaughter of hundreds and thousands of civilians. No, instead, the meeting focused on criticizing Israel, the one true democracy in the Middle East. I am new around here, but I understand that’s how the Council has operated, month after month, for decades.”

She affirmed that the “United States will not turn a blind eye to this anymore. I am here to underscore the ironclad support of the United States for Israel. I’m here to emphasize the United States is determined to stand up to the UN’s anti-Israel bias. We will never repeat the terrible mistake of Resolution 2334 and allow one-sided Security Council resolutions to condemn Israel. Instead, we will push for action on the real threats we face in the Middle East… Israel exists in a region where others call for its complete destruction and in a world where anti-Semitism is on the rise. These are threats that we should discuss at the United Nations…”

Photo credit: By I, Aotearoa, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

Amir Tsarfati, a Jewish Christian, is the founder and president of Behold Israel, a news site to correct the scarcity in trustworthy reportage on issues and events impacting Israel, and to resolve the uncertainty about who or what to believe.