Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on Thursday that his nation has withdrawn from the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) because the organization protects abusers of human rights around the world, pushes antisemitic rhetoric, and constantly harasses Israel.
“The ‘human rights’ council has consistently enabled countries that abuse human rights to evade scrutiny, while obsessively pursuing Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East,” Sa’ar said.
“Joining President Donald Trump’s just decision, Israel will no longer tolerate the Council’s blatant antisemitism. Enough is enough!” he declared.
President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to withdraw the United States from UNHRC, for reasons similar to those outlined by the Israeli foreign minister.
“I’ve always felt that the U.N. has tremendous potential. It’s not living up to that potential right now,” Trump said at the White House signing ceremony.
Trump’s executive order also terminated U.S. support for the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), the primary U.N. aid agency for the Palestinians. The Israelis provided compelling evidence that UNRWA was infiltrated by Hamas terrorist operatives, prompting the Biden administration to “pause” U.S. funding.
Sa’ar wrote a letter to UNHRC President Jurg Lauber in which he said the U.N. agency has “traditionally protected serial human rights abusers by allowing them to hide from scrutiny, and instead obsessively demonizes the one democracy in the Middle East – Israel.”
“It has become a political tool and a convenient platform, cynically used to advance certain political aims, to bash and delegitimize Israel,” Sa’ar wrote.
“Israel has been subject to over 100 condemnatory resolutions, over 20% of all resolutions ever passed in the Council – more than against Iran, Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela combined,” he observed.
Sa’ar pointed to Item 7 of the UNHRC agenda, the only item that “focuses on a single country, Israel. It is also the only agenda item that has no expiration date, and no provision for review.
“Since the horrific massacre of October 7, the Council has employed every platform to spread misinformation and blood libels against Israel,” he charged. “Under the guise of so-called promotion of human rights, the Council has become an agency of perpetuating the Israel-Palestinian conflict.”
“By systematically demonizing the only democratic country in the Middle East, the Council emboldens terrorism and its state sponsors. It has long since relinquished any hope of advancing peace, security, and human rights, and instead contributes day in and day out to the polarization of the conflict and destabilizing the region,” he wrote.
“It is this reality that makes it impossible for Israel to continue to engage with the Human Rights Council, and Israel will not accept this blatant discrimination any longer,” Sa’ar concluded.
The letter from Sa’ar was strongly critical of the U.N.’s “one-sided special rapporteur” for the Palestinians, Francesca Albanese, without calling her out by name. Albanese blasted Israel’s “extremely serious” decision to withdraw from the council Thursday.
“It shows the hubris and the lack of realization of what they have done. They insist in self-righteousness, that they have nothing to be held accountable for, and they are proving it to the entire international community,” she said.
Albanese went a long way toward proving Sa’ar’s point by once again accusing Israel of “genocide” against the Palestinians.
Albanese has previously told Hamas it has a “right to resist” Israeli “occupation” through terrorism, she has defended Hamas for murdering Israeli security personnel, and she has compared Israel unfavorably to Nazi Germany. Hamas, in turn, eagerly cites Albanese’s genocide rhetoric in its propaganda.
“The north is being attacked primarily by soldiers. The south has been attacked primarily by settlers, and you can see this as an assault on the Palestinian people as a whole,” Albanese railed on Thursday.
Albanese also assailed Trump for withdrawing from UNHRC, accusing him of “destroying the basic principles of respect for human rights across a huge spectrum, not just in Palestine.”
“I’m surprised that European states are staying silent instead of rising up and saying, ‘This is utter nonsense, and we will not tolerate this,’” she added.
