February 13, 2018

A congressional resolution put forth by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) criticizes the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for its bias against Israel and calls for a boycott against the UNHRC.

The resolution describes the UNHRC’s actions as “wasteful and abusive” because they zero in on “Israel as a permanent agenda item with no other country singled out in the same manner.” For instance, the resolution cites a recent UNHRC report that “targets at least twenty-two United States companies conducting lawful business with Israel” and “prepares groundwork for boycotts against companies that do business with Israel.”

Additionally, the resolution criticizes the UNHRC for its lack of transparency and blowing through resources on unimportant issues.

The resolution concludes by calling for the UNHRC to fix its transparency issues and end its anti-Israel bias and that Congress should include the UNHRC under its anti-boycott laws, which would result in Congress cutting $23 million from the agency.

“Putting it in context with the lack of attention to nations such as North Korea, where you have more starvation and torture and the ultimate totalitarian regime, where you have in Cuba a lack of freedoms and the abuses of human rights and dignity, and sadly this particular council has focused I believe in a very anti-Semitic and anti-Israel way of focusing condemnations on the democracy of Israel,” Wilson told the Washington Free Beacon.

Wilson added, “My view is it is so off base that we should make every effort to reform it or withdraw.”

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley has previously floated the idea of the U.S. withdrawing from the UNHRC altogether.

“It’s hard to accept that this council has never considered a resolution on Venezuela and yet it adopted five biased resolutions, in March, against a single country, Israel,” Haley said in a June speech to the UNHRC. “It is essential that this council address its chronic anti-Israel bias if it is to have any credibility.”

U.N. Watch points out that the UNHRC is filled with representatives from countries like Cuba, China and Saudi Arabia that are swimming in multiple human rights abuses. U.N. Watch has also accused U.N Human Rights Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein of hypocrisy for denouncing the Trump administration on inaction on anti-Semitism while Hussein has been silent on the rising anti-Semitism in Europe.