"In 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Council, the U.N.’s top human rights body, created an unprecedented permanent Commission of Inquiry designed to target Israel, applying double standards to the Jewish state and questioning its place in the family of nations. The U.N. General Assembly decided to fund this antisemitic fishing expedition at the end of December 2021 over the negative votes of both the United States and Israel.
A week later, starting Jan. 1, the Biden administration rejoined the Human Rights Council as a full member.
The House has now passed an omnibus spending bill that funds this sham.
If the Senate fails to block funding, taxpayer money will go toward this venture to label Israel as a racist state, criminalize Israeli self-defense, and boost the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign directed at Israel.
The development marks a new low in hypocrisy for both the Biden administration and all those members of Congress who purport to stand with Israel in pursuit of American values.
The omnibus bill dedicates money to strengthen normalization agreements with Israel and to counter antisemitism. At exactly the same time, it funds the council’s new multimillion-dollar venture to deny normalization and promote antisemitism.
On one hand, the omnibus bill requires reporting on ‘the prosecution of citizens or residents of Arab countries for … engaging Israeli citizens in any way.’ On the other, it funds a U.N. endeavor to criminalize and ban engaging Israeli citizens and businesses, based on slanderous charges of ‘systematic discrimination and repression based on racial or religious identity.’
The omnibus bill includes new money to enhance security for the protection of nonprofit groups such as synagogues, yet it simultaneously funds a machine to inflame xenophobic hatred of Jews everywhere under the guise of mere criticism of Israel.
In a holdover from prior years, the omnibus bill says money for the Human Rights Council itself is dependent on the secretary of state determining and reporting that the council is ‘taking significant steps to remove Israel as a permanent agenda item and ensure integrity in the election of members to such Council.’
In practice, however, this requirement is ignored. The council has only 10 permanent agenda items. One is dedicated solely to condemning Israel, and the council has never taken any significant steps toward removing it. Nor will it because the U.S. and its allies don’t have the votes in the U.N. club to prevail. Russia, China, Cuba, Libya, Somalia, and Venezuela, all exemplars of human rights, are laughing all the way to the bank.
Republican presidents have typically responded to this human rights travesty by refusing to join the council, or in the case of President Donald Trump, withdrawing from it. Rejoining was at the top of the Biden-Blinken foreign policy agenda.
Nonetheless, one need not commit to funding all things Human Rights Council, as the omnibus bill does, as a condition of membership.
Congress can add a phrase withholding funds currently earmarked by the U.N. for the Israel Inquiry.
If it doesn’t, Americans’ millions will pay for the most lethal anti-Israel enterprise ever launched in U.N. history. For shame."