The U.S. Should Seize the Opportunity to Reform the UN Human Rights Council

Oct. 26 2021

In 2018, Washington withdrew from the United Nations Human Right Council (UNHRC), where representatives of the world’s most brutal dictatorships join with those of democracies to condemn Israel. The Biden administration obtained a seat for America on the council earlier this month, and has argued that the U.S. will be able to do more to correct the body’s flaws from within than by boycotting it. Richard Goldberg and Orde Kittrie urge the White House to make good on its commitments:

Since the council’s creation, it has adopted more resolutions condemning Israel than every other country in the world combined. In contrast, the council has adopted zero resolutions on the gross human-rights abuses in China, Cuba, and Russia. In addition, Israel is the only country to which the council dedicates a standing agenda item.

The council currently is preparing its most insidious assault on Israel to date: . . . a new commission of inquiry designed to produce a report falsely accusing Israel of committing apartheid. . . . The commission’s objectives are clear: label Israel as committing apartheid; leverage the commission’s reporting to support the global boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement (BDS), and pressure the International Criminal Court to expand its illegitimate investigation of Israel.

The UNHRC’s fatal flaws stretch beyond its bias against Israel, of course. The council’s membership is dominated by countries that violate human rights, including China, Cuba, Eritrea, Libya, Russia, and Venezuela. The UNHRC’s disproportionate focus on Israel seems designed to distract attention from the gross and systemic abuses committed by the council’s own member states, which are rarely if ever condemned by the council.

In a statement issued moments after the UNHRC election results were announced, Secretary of State Antony Blinken put anti-Israel bias at the top of the Biden administration’s reform agenda. . . . The Biden administration should . . . start building allied support for a resolution to dissolve the [new anti-Israel] commission. There is precedent for the U.S. successfully leading such a reversal when it uses its diplomatic muscle: the 1991 General Assembly vote to repeal a 1975 resolution declaring Zionism to be racism, which is essentially what the UNHRC’s commission of inquiry was established to conclude.

Read more at The Hill

More about: Antony Blinken, U.S. Foreign policy, UNHRC, United Nations

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023