A StandWithUs UK Special Deep Dive Series
Our last Deep Dive about UNRWA found the following:
- UNRWA’s Founding and Scope: Established in 1949, UNRWA was designed to support Palestinian refugees and uniquely allows them to retain refugee status through generations, providing aid, education, and services across the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring countries.
- Educational Concerns: UNRWA’s schools have faced allegations of promoting antisemitic content and glorifying terrorism, including lessons that involve calculations with martyr counts and teaching physics with images of Palestinian youths attacking soldiers.
- Staff Allegations: There is substantial evidence of UNRWA staff affiliations with terror groups like Hamas. UNRWA employees have reportedly participated in attacks, and many senior education staff members have known terror ties, prompting temporary funding suspensions from some nations.
- Facility Misuse: Numerous UNRWA facilities in Gaza have allegedly been exploited by Hamas for terror purposes, such as hosting tunnel shafts, server farms, and weapon stockpiles, directly contravening the UN’s mission of neutrality.
- Funding and Accountability: Despite documented cases linking UNRWA staff and resources to terrorist activities, major donor countries have continued their support, sparking significant debate about UNRWA’s efficacy, accountability, and potential complicity.
Our education team have worked extensively on presenting this special four-part Deep Dive about the UN, and the questions that arise about whether this supposedly impartial organisation is complicit with the actions of terror groups or simply incompetent at upholding its own basic values. This piece explores the bias of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) against Israel, and its failure to champion human rights.
UNHRC
The Human Rights Council is an intergovernmental body within the United Nations system responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe and for addressing situations of human rights violations and making recommendations on them. It has the ability to discuss all thematic human rights issues and situations that require its attention throughout the year. It meets at the United Nations Office at Geneva.
Deep Bias Against Israel
Documentation from UN Watch, an NGO that observes impartiality of the UN, has presented deep bias and hypocrisy in the Human Rights Council. Let’s look at the most alarming issues.
Obsession with demonising Israel
Israel is the only country at the Human Rights Council whose human rights record is examined under a special agenda item (No. 7), while all other countries’ records are scrutinised in the general debate.
Each year, Israel is condemned in at least four annual resolutions (five until 2020 when two of the resolutions were combined) and is the subject of at least five critical reports, while oppressive regimes like Iran and North Korea are criticised in only one resolution. Most of the world’s worst regimes are not subject to any criticism.
Israel has been the subject of more special sessions than any other country. Since the Human Rights Council was created, it has held 1 special session on Libya, 1 on Iran, 3 on Myanmar, 5 on Syria, and 9 on Israel.
The UN human rights expert on Palestine is mandated only to investigate “Israel’s violations” of international law, and not violations by the Palestinian Authority or Hamas. Therefore, current mandate-holder Francesca Albanese routinely ignores abuses by Palestinian actors against the human rights of both Israelis and Palestinians, including Hamas rocket and terror attacks against Israelis, Palestinian Authority arbitrary arrest and torture of Palestinians, and Hamas torture and extrajudicial executions of Palestinians. Moreover, she repeatedly rejects Israel’s right to exist, justifies Palestinian attacks against Israelis, and defends terrorists. After October 7th, she engaged in Hamas atrocity denial and victim-blaming against Israelis. Albanese has denied that rape took place on October 7th, and recently went on record to say that Yahya Sinwar’s killing was ‘inhumane.’
Table showing the number of resolutions against Israel compared to other countries in the UNHRC since 2006 (Jewish Virtual Library)
Grants impunity to the very worst regimes
The council grants impunity for most of the world’s worst regimes, adopting zero resolutions on gross human rights abuses perpetrated in, among others, Algeria, China, Cuba, Egypt, Gaza, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and Zimbabwe.
The council has included as members serial violators of human rights who use their position as a false badge of international legitimacy. Members have included China, Cuba, Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Venezuela.
UN Human Rights Council in session.
Leadership and platforms for the worst human rights abusers
In 2023, just after Iran had executed two people for using social media to criticise religion, the the Human Rights Council appointed Iran to chair the annual Social Forum, whose theme in 2023 was technology and the promotion of human rights.
In February 2023, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian addressed the Council, while the country was in the midst of its violent crackdown against the Hijab protests following the death in custody of Masah Amini.
In March 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov addressed the Council, justifying Russia’s war in Ukraine and blaming it on the West.
Former Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian addressing the Council in 2024.
You decide: complicity or incompetence?
The UN Human Rights Council’s track record raises serious questions about its impartiality, particularly in relation to Israel. With a dedicated agenda item solely scrutinising Israel and a disproportionate number of resolutions condemning it, the council appears unbalanced. The council’s mandate allows its special expert on Palestine to focus exclusively on Israeli actions, excluding violations by Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, which has been especially concerning since the October 7th attacks. This selective attention and lack of condemnation for Hamas’s actions against civilians prompt doubts about whether the council is upholding its duty to fairly address global human rights abuses.
