British officials put the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) “on notice” Friday after the council passed a series of resolutions singling out Israel for its policies towards the Palestinians while ignoring other countries’ human rights violations.
“Today we are putting the Human Rights Council on notice,” U.K. Ambassador Julian Braithwaite told the UNHRC during the closing moments of its latest session. The group approved four resolutions that condemned Israeli policy on the Palestinians, and called on the Jewish state to return control of the Golan Heights to Syria.
“If things do not change, in the future we will adopt a policy of voting against all resolutions concerning Israel’s conduct in the occupied Syrian and Palestinian territories,” Braithwaite said.
The U.K.’s statement comes three days after the terror attack in London that killed five people and injured dozens more. The attacks resembled the terrorism of the Palestinian wave of car-rammings and stabbings that has plagued Israel in recent years.
“According to the [Middle East] Quartet’s report last year, there were 250 terrorist attacks, leading to the deaths of at least 30 Israelis,” Braithwaite said. “Yet neither ‘terrorism’ nor ‘incitement’ were a focus of this week’s council discussions and resolutions. This is not acceptable.”
In a similar approach to the U.K.’s warning, the U.S. has recently threatened to pull out of the UNHRC if it continues its anti-Israel bias. This week, the U.S. also announced it would boycott the UNHRC’s “Agenda Item Seven” session, which mandates that the council discuss alleged Israeli human rights abuses against the Palestinians at every session.
Braithwaite also took issue with Agenda Item Seven, saying that “nowhere is the disproportionate focus on Israel starker and more absurd than in the case of today’s resolution on the occupation of Syria’s Golan. Syria’s regime butchers and murders its people on a daily basis. But it is not Syria that is a permanent standing item on the council’s agenda; it is Israel.”
