Foreign Minister Gideon Saar formally announced on Thursday that Israel will withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
According to Saar’s letter, addressed to the UNHRC president, the decision was reached “in light of the ongoing and unrelenting institutional bias against Israel in the Human Rights Council.” Saar further wrote:
The UNHRC has traditionally protected serial human rights abusers by allowing them to hide from scrutiny, and instead obsessively demonizes the one democracy in the Middle bast – Israel. It has become a political tool and a convenient platform, cynically used to advance certain political aims to bash and delegitimise Israel.
Saar further criticized Item 7 of the UNHRC for being institutionally discriminatory. This is a standing agenda focused on alleged violations of human rights and international law in the Palestinian territories. The special rapporteur assigned to the Isreal-Hamas conflict was also claimed to be one-sided, “precluding any chance of objective analysis of the facts”.
Israel now joins the US in stepping away from the international body. On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the US from the UNHRC and the UN Relief and Works Agency. Israel’s action can be seen as mirroring the US stance.
The UNHRC was established in 2006 and is the UN’s main body for safeguarding human rights globally. It facilitates dialogue on critical issues, adopts resolutions that reflect the international community’s will, and develops procedures to address rights violations. Israel has held observer status on the council following its return in 2015 after a previous withdrawal in 2012. Now it has pulled out of the process entirely.
