US officials have announced they will seek membership in the UN Human Rights Council, an anti-Israel body whose members include human rights violators who maintain an unfair obsession with Israel and consistently pass biased resolutions against the Jewish state.
A top US diplomat said the United States will seek another term on the notoriously anti-Israel UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), a sign the Obama administration is looking past criticism that the UN-backed body coddles dictators while singling out and bashing Israel.
In a speech at the 47-member council in Geneva, Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken highlighted US concerns about the human rights records of countries including Russia, Egypt, Cuba and China, and accused the HRC of “persistent bias” against Israel.
Speaking to reporters afterward Wednesday, he criticized the North Korean government’s “particularly abysmal” human rights record and “delusional refusal to confront the realities of what it is doing to its own people.”
At the council Tuesday, North Korea’s foreign minister expressed disregard for UN resolutions critical of its rights record.
The UNHRC is infamously biased against Israel, with nearly half of its resolutions focused solely on Israel while completely ignoring war, strife and atrocities committed around the globe.
Israeli leaders and officials have cited the UNHRC for its “obsessive hostility” toward Israel and its “one-sided mandate.”
Over the past years the UNHRC has authored several reports accusing Israel of war crimes allegedly committed during its defensive counter-terrorism operations, while completely ignoring the context and not mentioning the offensive side, Hamas in most cases, at all.
In most cases, Israel has refused to cooperate with the body due to its unfair and biased stance.
The US has been one of the only voices defending the Jewish State in the biased Council, which is supposedly a champion of human rights, but in fact its membership includes violators of human rights, including Venezuela, the United Arab Emirates, Kyrgyzstan, Togo, China, Libya, Cuba and is chaired by Saudi Arabia.
In March 2015, US Secretary of State John Kerry castigated the UNHRC for its consistent bias against Israel. While he said he believes in the Council’s value, Kerry indicated that it is undermined by its unfair “obsession” with Israel. He vowed to continue the US policy of protecting Israel from delegitimization.
“No one in this room can deny that there is an unbalanced focus on one democratic country,” Kerry said. “It must be said that the HRC’s obsession with Israel risks undermining the credibility of the entire organization.”
“We will oppose any effort by any group or participant in the UN system to arbitrarily and regularly delegitimize or isolate Israel, not just at the UN Human Rights Council, but wherever it occurs,” Kerry added.
By: AP and United with Israel Staff
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