Israel halts participation in UN Human Rights Council a day after Trump pulls out of the body

A day after US President Donald Trump announced that the country would not engage with the United Nations Human Rights Council, Israel decided to follow the same suit. On Wednesday, Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced that the Jewish nation would halt its participation in the UN body.

“Israel joins the United States and will not participate in the UNHRC,” Sa’ar wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. The announcement came after the highly publicised meeting between Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump. It is pertinent to note that neither the United States nor Israel are currently members of the UNHRC. But like all the UN member states, they have been participating as informal observers and have seats in the council meeting chamber.

“The UNHRC has traditionally protected human rights abusers by allowing them to hide from scrutiny, and instead obsessively demonizes the one democracy in the Middle East — Israel,” Sa’ar said in his post. “This body has focused on attacking a democratic country and propagating antisemitism instead of promoting human rights,” he added.

Israel accuses UNHRC of discriminating against the country

Sa’ar claimed that the UNHRC has “discrimination against us is clear” and asserted Israel is the only country “with an agenda item dedicated solely to it.” The Israeli minister emphasised that UNHRC has passed over 100 “condemnatory resolutions” against Israel, a figure amounting to over 20 per cent of all the motions ever passed. Interestingly, it is more than the total combined resolutions against countries like Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela.

“Israel will not accept this discrimination any longer!” Sa’ar concluded. Trump on Tuesday said that the United States will withdraw from UNHRC and will not resume funding for UNRWA. It is pertinent to note that the agency provides services to Palestinians across the Middle East.

Washington stopped funding UNRWA after it came to light that a handful of his organisation’s employees allegedly participated in the October 7, 2023 attack which was conducted by Hamas in southern Israel. Trump also pulled the US out of the Human Rights Council back in June 2018. His then-ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley accused the council of committing “chronic bias against Israel” and highlighted the human rights abuse committed by its members.

At that time, Israel maintained that it would reduce its participation within the body. However, things changed after Trump the 2020 election to former President Joe Biden. Once Biden came to the White House, he renewed its support for the Human Rights Council and the US won a seat on the 47-nation body in October 2021. Despite this, the Biden administration later announced that the US would not seek a second consecutive term in the body.

With inputs from agencies.