Israeli FM claims UN Human Rights Council has been antisemitic
Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar on February 5th alleged that the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has been antisemitic, according to The New Arab and Agencies.
In a post on X, Saar said: “This body has focused on attacking a democratic country and propagating anti-Semitism, instead of promoting human rights.”
Previously, Israel has criticised arms of the UN for corruption and has taken part in repeated reviews that UN members need to submit to the UNHRC. For decades, the UN has accused Israel of carrying out serious human rights abuses against Palestinians and Arabs in neighbouring nations.
Saar published the statement on X hours after Donald Trump said the US would pull out of the council. Israel has since joined the US in its decision to withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council. Israel’s foreign minister said that the nation told the UNHRC that it would be leaving the council on the grounds of “ongoing and unrelenting institutional bias against Israel,” Reuters reported on February 6th.
A report published by Tel Aviv University found that, since October 7 2023, countries have seen dramatic increases in the number of antisemitic incidences. According to data collected by the Report from governmental agencies, law enforcement authorities, Jewish organisations, media, and fieldwork, New York, the city with the largest Jewish population in the world, recorded 325 anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2023 in comparison to the 261 it recorded in 2022, according to the NYPD.
In response to the boycott, UNHRC spokesman Pascal Sim said Israel was unable to “withdraw from the council” as it is “not one of the 47 member states” and has been given an “observer state status” instead.
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories said on February 6th that Israel’s decision to pull out of the council was “extremely serious”, according to Alarabiya News. Francesca Albanese went on to accuse Israel of “genocide” and expressed her fears about the conflict intensifying in the West Bank.
“The north [of the West Bank] is being attacked primarily by soldiers. The south has been attacked primarily by [Israeli] settlers,” she said, adding that “you can see this as an assault on the Palestinian people as a whole.”
The New Arab and Agencies, Alarabiya News, Reuters, Tel Aviv University
