27 nations issue joint statement urging UN to end mandate against Israel over human rights abuses

Twenty-seven countries issued a joint statement on Tuesday urging the United Nations to end an ongoing mandate of the Commission of Inquiry (COI) against Israel over human rights abuses. The COI was established by the Human Rights Council in May 2021, following the 11-day military battle between Israel and the Hamas terror organization in Gaza.

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Michelle Taylor delivered the statement, which criticized the council for singling out Israel.  

“We continue to believe that this long-standing disproportionate scrutiny should end, and that the Council should address all human rights concerns, regardless of country, in an even-handed manner. Regrettably, we are concerned that the Commission of Inquiry will further contribute to the polarization of a situation about which so many of us are concerned,” according to the statement.

In addition to the U.S., some of the other countries who signed the statement include Britain, Canada, Austria, Poland, Italy, Hungary and Albania.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen expressed appreciation for the countries who signed the statement, as well as for their continued concern for the council’s discrimination against the Jewish state.

Three council members appointed to the COI by the president of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) have been known for issuing anti-Semitic libel and accusing Israel of apartheid.

In December, Italian attorney and U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese was forced to publicly acknowledge anti-Semitic comments she posted on social media. Despite her clear bias and prejudicial slant against Israel, she was appointed as an 'independent expert' to investigate human rights violations in Palestinian terrorities. As a strong critic of Israel’s right to exist or defend itself from missile attacks, Albanese claimed the State of Israel was established on Palestinian land. In addition, she compared Israelis to Nazis, suggesting that the Jewish state is guilty of war crimes against Palestinians, and even claimed that the “Jewish lobby” controlled the United States.

In July 2021, the UNHRC appointed its former chief Navi Pillay to head an open-ended inquiry to examine alleged human rights abuses and their underlying “root causes” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, following the 11-day Gaza war, Operation Guardian of the Walls. As the former high commissioner, Pillay initiated four fact-finding missions against Israel, including the controversial Goldstone Report, appointed the extreme anti-Israel professor Richard Falk, and offered Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a platform at the international Durban II Human Rights Conference in 2009.

The COI has repeatedly accused Israel of violating international law and causing tensions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with their presence in the West Bank, also known as biblical Judea and Samaria.

In May 2022, The Hague Initiative for International Cooperation called on the UN to stop the commission inquiry after concluding the investigation was the “most hostile anti-Israel inquisition in UN history” with a predetermined outcome.