The UK has today voted against a World Health Organisation (WHO) resolution at the World Health Assembly (WHA) because “it singles out Israel and unhelpfully politicises the WHO”.
The UK representative underlined: “It is troubling that The World Health Assembly does not consider any of the many other dreadful conflicts, civil wars, or political impasses around the world in the same way”, adding that the resolution singling out Israel remains the only one of its kind.
He emphasised: “Today, the United Kingdom voted, as we have before, against this politicisation of the World Health Assembly”.
The annual assembly of the UN’s World Health Organisation voted 96 to 11 for a resolution, co-sponsored by a bloc of Arab nations and the Palestinian delegation, that singled out Israel over “Health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan”.
The UK maintained that while it voted against the resolution, it remained “deeply concerned” about the health situation in the Palestinian Territories.
In recent years the UK has taken an increasingly strong stance against anti-Israel bias at the UN. The UK Government in March 2017 delivered an unprecedented condemnation of the UN Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) stance towards Israel, announcing that it would be putting the UN body “on notice” and will vote against every motion on the conflict unless it ends its “disproportion and bias” against the Jewish State.
