Israel Announces “Withdrawal” from UN Human Rights Council, Prompting Debate
Following the United States’ earlier decision, Israel has announced its intention to withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), citing what it calls persistent anti-Israeli bias, Al Jazeera reports.
However, a UNHRC spokesperson has clarified that as an observer state, Israel cannot formally withdraw from the body.
The announcement, made by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Thursday, accuses the UNHRC of institutional anti-Semitism and claims Israel is joining the US in refusing to participate in the council. Saar said the decision was “reached in light of the ongoing and unrelenting institutional bias against Israel in the Human Rights Council, which has been persistent since its inception in 2006.”
Echoing Saar’s sentiments, Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, accused the UNHRC of “moral failure.”
The UNHRC, based in Geneva, is comprised of 47 UN member states elected by other UN members to serve four-year terms on a rotating basis. The US, like Israel, is currently not an elected member. The council conducts periodic reviews of human rights records of UN member states and appoints independent UN special rapporteurs to investigate human rights issues globally.
While Israel participates in the UNHRC’s periodic reviews, it has boycotted debates focusing on the “human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories” for several years.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, described Israel’s announcement as “extremely serious.”
The move represents the latest escalation in a series of confrontations between Israel and the UN. Most recently, in October, Israel banned the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), a decision that drew widespread international condemnation.
