Statement by Israel on the annual report of the Human Rights Council to the U.N. General Assembly

"Mr. President, Excellencies,

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations doesn’t frequently respond to the baseless, one-sided and outright falsehoods of the Human Rights Council’s accusations against Israel. But there comes a time when the lies must be answered.

There comes a time when staying silent is no longer an option.

There comes a time for the truth to be told and that time is long overdue.

This year, the Human Rights Council has once again let us all down. It has let you down. It has let down all those who serve your nations at this body. It has let the world down. Bestowed with the sacred task of defending human rights, it continues to get it wrong. It has let down people all over the world, who endure human rights abuses every day, every hour, every minute. But their voices are not heard.

The voices of the victims, of the terrible crimes against humanity that we have already seen in the first decades of this century, cannot be heard over the obsession of the so-called Human Rights Council with targeting Israel.

Yes, the Human Rights Council has failed the victims of human rights abuses all around the world. But this doesn’t come as a surprise, as the Human Rights Council spends most of its time focused on Israel, adopting a total of 95 resolutions against the only Jewish state. It has let down the people of North Korea, who are starved and imprisoned by their leadership. Yet the Human Rights Council has spoken against these crimes only 13 times in 15 years.

The Human Rights Council has let down the people of Syria, who have been displaced, murdered, and bombed by their leader with chemical weapons. Yet, the Human Rights Council has only cared to speak against these crimes less than 40 times in 15 years.

It has let down the people of Iran and Yemen, who are ruled by violent Islamist fanatics. How many times has the Human Rights Council spoke out against them? Less than 15 times combined.

The Human Rights Council has let all these victims down. And you know what? The Human Rights Council has even let down the Palestinian people, whose leaders are the ones who abused the rights of their people. Whether by the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority, who imprison their critics, and even beat them to death, like Nizar Banat, who dared to speak out against the corruption of the Palestinian leadership, or by Hamas in Gaza, where children in schools are used as human shields and hospitals are used to store and launch rockets in Hamas’s terrorist war.

The Human Rights Council whitewashes these crimes, lending a hand to the terrorists and laying the blame – all the blame- at the door of the State of Israel, which only seeks to defend its people from Hamas’s indiscriminate rocket attacks.

Sadly, the voices of the oppressed cannot be heard because the Human Rights Council insisted on waiting its time, its budget, and its resources targeting one country – my country. A free and flourishing democracy witj a free press, freedom of worship, and freedom of expression. A country with more equality for women, for the LGBTQ community, and for minorities, than any country in our region and further afield. A country whose people are the target of daily terror attacks. A country that, because of our values of democracy and freedom, stands on the frontline against global terror and extremism. A country which because its flag is the Star of David and because its language is the ancient language of the Bible, because it is the homeland of the Jewish people, is the only country in the world today, that is threatened with annihilation at the hands of Iran’s genocidal, nuclear-obsessed ayatollahs.

This is the country, the only country, which is designated as a permanent, open-ended agenda item, at every Human Rights Council session, to be demonized and singled out. Because, anytime is a good time to attack Israel. It’s always open season on Israel at the Human Rights Council.

Since the establishment of the Council 15 years ago, it has decided to blame and condemn Israel, not 10 times like Iran, or 35 times like Syria. No, the Human Rights Council has attacked Israel with 95 resolutions. Compared to 142 against all other countries combined.

Since its founding, the Council has used, or I should say abused, 1/3 of all its inquiries to target and attack the world’s only Jewish state.

This past May, the Human Rights Council decided to carry out an investigation into a conflict, a conflict between a terrorist group and a law-abiding democratic state. It established a Commission of Inquiry that completely disregarded the hostilities of one party to the conflict – Hamas – while shifting all the blame, all the blame, to the other party – Israel. The Human Rights Council suddenly became a Harry Potter Council, able to make all of Hamas’ war crimes and atrocities, namely the 4,300 Hamas rockets fired at Israeli civilians, magically disappear.

Less than 2 kilometers separates the Israeli towns of Sderot and Nir Am from the border of the Gaza Strip. It is less than 500 meters from the community of Nachal Oz. In the short distance it takes for a Qassam missile to fly from Gaza, to strike and kill Israeli civilians, the Human Rights Council is able to wash away Hamas’s offenses and instead lay the blame on Israel for daring to defend its people.

And while the Human Rights Council spends its time twisting reality and ignoring true human rights violations, Israel has been busy, very, very busy. Israel is constantly working for the sake of human rights and is saving human lives all over the world. Whether it’s our soldiers, who travel around the globe on humanitarian missions, often arriving first at the scene of disasters, or the Israeli scientists dedicated to providing access to clean drinking water, or food security, and providing clean, renewal energy to countless people. Or the Israeli doctors and nurses, who treat Syrian victims coming to our borders seeking help and treatment. The State of Israel always has and always will provide vital aid to the countless nations in need.

Nevertheless, Israel is the country, the Jewish country, that the Human Rights Council decided to continue to bash with its hateful, anti-Israel and antisemitic rants. The absurdity of this situation seems almost comical, if the severity of the repercussions wasn’t so immense.

By whitewashing Hamas’ terror attacks and focusing so much time and energy on Israel, the suffering of the victims of humanity’s greatest crimes goes unnoticed. Shame on you, shame on you, shame on you!

Mr. President, Excellencies,

Make no mistake. The UN Human Rights Council has let us all down. But let’s be honest. It hasn’t surprised us. It is a body that has included in its ranks representatives of dictatorships and oppressive regimes. How can you sleep at night when the worst human rights violators are the supposed defenders or human rights? While this Council chooses to willingly discriminate against Jews in Israel, it did not invent anti-Israel bias. It has no copyright claims on the hatred against Israel.

It was on this stage, at this very body, that the very right of the Jewish people, to have a national home, was itself declared to be racist. A decision that was justly over-turned. A decision that Israel’s Ambassador at the time, Chaim Herzog, tore up, before the United Nations. And this is exactly what should be done to this anti-Semitic, distorted, one-sided report. For just as that 1975 resolution, equating Zionism with racism, was itself a gross form of anti-Jewish racism, which has no place in this international body, so too, the Human Rights Council’s obsessive anti-Israel bias, embodied, once again, by this report, and it should have no place in any body concerned with human rights, security or peace.

It’s only place is in the dustbin of antisemitism, and that is exactly how we shall treat it."