Yesterday, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson condemned the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for its “disproportionate” focus on Israel, which he said was “damaging to the cause of peace”.
In an address at the 38th session of the Human Rights Council, the Foreign Secretary underlined that “unless things change, we shall move next year to vote against all resolutions introduced under Item 7”.
Agenda Item 7 mandates that the Council debate alleged Israeli human rights abuses against Palestinians during each of its sessions. No other country has such a standing agenda item.
Last year, the UK Government delivered an unprecedented condemnation of the UNHRC’S bias against Israel, announcing that it was putting the UN body “on notice” and would vote against every motion on the conflict unless the body ends its “disproportion and bias” against the Jewish State.
In March 2018, the UK voted against two anti-Israel resolutions, stating that “the existence of a dedicated agenda item (“Item 7”) that singles out Israel does little to advance dialogue, stability or mutual understanding”.
Last month, Middle East Minister Alistair Burt justified the UK Government’s opposition to a UNHRC resolution calling for an investigation into the recent protests in Gaza, stating that the “substance of the resolution was not impartial and it was unbalanced”. He said: “We could not support an investigation that refused to explicitly examine the action of non-state actors such as Hamas. An investigation of that kind would not provide us with a comprehensive assessment of accountability”.
Read the Foreign Secretary’s statement in full here.
