In response to Thursday’s announcement by Israel’s foreign minister, UNHRC spokesperson Pascal Sim said Israel has observer state status within the rights body and, therefore, could not withdraw from the council.
The Geneva-based council is made up of 47 UN member states, which are elected by other UN members to serve four-year terms on a rotating basis. Additionally, the US is currently not a council member.
Gideon Saar, the foreign minister of Israel, charged the UNHRC with anti-Semitism on Thursday, and said that Israel “joins the United States and won’t be a part of it.”
Saar added that the Human Rights Council has been consistently biased against Israel, which has been ongoing and unrelenting since its inception in 2006, and that the decision was made.
Earlier, Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, accused the body of “moral failure”.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, said Israel’s decision was “extremely serious” and “shows the hubris and the lack of realisation of what they]Israel] have done”.
“They insist in self-righteousness that they have nothing to be held accountable for, and they are proving it to the entire international community”, , she added.
The UNHRC is also in charge of appointing human rights experts to serve as independent UN special rapporteurs, conducting periodic reviews of the human rights records of UN member states.
Israel has participated in periodic reviews that UN members are required to submit to the UNHRC. For several years, however, it has boycotted debates on the “human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories”.
Israel’s decision on Thursday is the most recent in a line of diplomatic ties with the UN.
Source: Aljazeera
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