BICOM

Israel and the US have discussed the possibility that America could leave the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) because of the body’s disproportionate focus on Israel.

Army Radio yesterday reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu briefed his Likud faction about his US visit and confirmed that he suggested in his talks in Washington that the United States should consider leaving the Human Rights Council

Earlier this week, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of the State for International Organisation Affairs, Erin Barclay, told the UNHRC that “the obsession with Israel… is the largest threat to this council’s credibility”. She added that “the United States will oppose any effort to delegitimise or isolate Israel,” explaining that “when it comes to human rights no country should be free from scrutiny, but neither should any democratic country be regularly subjected to unfair, unbalanced and unfounded bias”.

Last weekend Politico reported that the Trump administration is considering withdrawing the US from the UNHRC and that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had expressed scepticism about the body to colleagues in part over its disproportionate focus on Israel.

Israeli and American leaders have repeatedly accused the UNHRC of excessive scrutiny of Israel whilst ignoring human rights violations elsewhere. Israel is the only country in the world that the UNHRC has assigned a permanent investigator, and the council’s charter includes a clause which stipulates that a separate discussion on Israel’s human rights record take place at every annual meeting.