The Biden administration will officially rejoin the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), reversing a 2018 Trump administration decision to leave the controversial body infamous for its relentless hostility toward Israel.
Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley slammed the move Thursday to re-enter a cabal with odious abusers among its members.
“If President Biden truly cared about human rights, he would keep us far away from the cesspool that is the UN Human Rights Council,” Haley told Fox News.
Current members include China, Cuba, Russia, Venezuela, and some of the worst regimes in the world.
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) October 14, 2021
In Haley’s 2019 memoir, she dedicated nearly an entire chapter to the UNHRC’s anti-Semitic invective and bogus, duplicitous resolutions.
“America left it under President Trump because we refused to lend our credibility, as the most generous country in the world, to cover for the world’s worst tyrants and dictators,” Haley said. “Biden’s actions today aren’t just embarrassing, they’re dangerous.”
Critics accused the UNHRC of an execrable anti-Israel bias, noting that the Jewish state is frequently condemned by the council, while human rights violations by rogue countries — including those on the council — are ignored.
The UNHRC continues to pass resolutions condemning Israel and recently formed a commission to investigate supposed “systematic” abuses allegedly committed in Israel during violence between Hamas and Israel earlier this year.
Biden promised the United States would rejoin the Council if he was elected, and said his administration would “work to ensure that body truly lives up to its values.”
In a statement Thursday, current U.N. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the U.S. “will use every tool at our disposal, from introducing resolutions and amendments to wielding our vote when needed. Our goals are clear: stand with human rights defenders and speak out against violations and abuses of human rights.”
She also pledged to oppose the Council’s “disproportionate attention on Israel” and “press against the election of countries with egregious human rights records and encourage those committed to promoting and protecting human rights both in their own countries and abroad to seek membership.”
When the U.S. left the UNHRC, then-Ambassador Haley described the group as a “hypocritical and self-serving organization that makes a mockery of human rights” with a “chronic bias against Israel.”
Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who also supported the decision to withdraw, once accused the body of “absolving wrongdoers through silence and falsely condemning those that committed no offense.”
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