UNHRC’s Anti-Israel Bias

Thank you Mr. President,

This Council has created a never-ending so-called “commission of inquiry” targeting Israel. This decision was made at a time when the terrorist organization Hamas fired over 4,000 rockets at Israeli civilians over a 12-day period. And yet the Council failed to mention Hamas even once in its resolution creating the commission.

Farcically, the mandate of the COI violates the basic principles of this body namely universality, impartiality, objectivity and non-selectiveness. It is based on a false narrative which distorts the facts and blindly ignores Palestinian terrorism. Last but not least, the Commission is comprised by members who have taken clear anti-Israel positions in the past, thus contradicting the requirement of impartiality mandated by the rules of this Council.

The COI represents an additional manifestation of this Council’s biased approach against Israel, exemplified by the agenda item 7. Item 7, the only agenda item which singles out a country for condemnation, is an enduring stain on this Council’s and the UN’s credibility, and diverts resources from widespread human rights abuses around the world.

The World Jewish Congress would like to reiterate the recent warning of a group of UN Special Rapporteurs that inflammatory rhetoric during spikes of violence in the Middle East could lead to Jewish persons and sites to be subjected to violence, discrimination, and harassment. We thus call on this Council to disband the biased COI.

Thank you.