The chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee today blasted the UN Human Rights Council for passing five resolutions against Israel, and reminded the administration that it claimed it would seek to reform the body.
One of the resolutions essentially creates “Goldstone II,” a new fact-finding mission into alleged Israeli settlement violations.
“Three years after the Obama Administration joined the Human Rights Council seeking to reform it from within, the Council remains as anti-Israel as ever,” Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) said in a statement.
“Any limited, tactical gains made by U.S. engagement at the Council are outweighed by the harm done through granting legitimacy to the fundamentally illegitimate body. The fact is that, with or without the U.S., the UNHRC remains dominated by rogue regimes who protect human rights abusers and target free democracies like Israel.
“Instead of running for re-election to the Council, the U.S. should finally leave that rogues’ gallery and seek credible alternative forums to advance human rights,” she said.
UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer noted that the latest round of Israel resolutions came on the same day that council watered down a resolution on Sri Lanka and ignored the group’s own proposed resolutions for victims of abuses in China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe.
“The council’s new fact-finding mission on settlements–whose co-sponsors include Syria and Iran–is a fraud, with the guilty verdict determined in advance,” Neuer said. “The egregiously one-sided resolution omits any mention of officially-sanctioned Palestinian terrorism, rocket fire targeting civilians and incitement to hatred, anti-Semitism and genocide.”
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