Revamped UN Human Rights Council Condemns Israel, Acquits Cuba

A United States congressional delegate to the United Nations is pushing for the United States to cut off funding for the UN Human Rights Council, saying the watchdog group's focus on Israel and failure to investigate other countries made it a disaster.

Senator Norm Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota, said Wednesday the council has essentially one issue on its agenda - Israel. "You've got countries like North Korea, Burma, Zimbabwe where you have state-sponsored brutality, and what we have is deafening silence," he said.

A U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee panel will take up the Human Rights Council's performance at a hearing Thursday. The committee last month approved legislation Coleman proposed to end U.S. funding of the council. The House of Representatives last month approved similar legislation by Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican from Florida.

Coleman, who along with Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, represents Congress in the U.S. delegation to the UN, is a longtime critic of the UN. Boxer also supported the funding cut off when the Foreign Relations Committee approved the bill.

"There is no connection between the United Nations Human Rights Council and human rights," said Livni, in an address to dignitaries and officials at Canada Day celebrations in Ramat Gan.

The foreign minister thanked Canada for being the only one of the council's 47 members to vote against its decision last week to place Israel on its permanent agenda.

"Canada took a strong stance and voted no, and notwithstanding the chairman went ahead and declared a consensus," Allen said.

"Israel should not be singled out when countries like Belarus and Sudan are ignored," the ambassador said, adding that Canada supported a two-state solution but believed in Israel's right to defend itself in a "tough neighborhood."

Members of the U.N.'s new human rights watchdog formally agreed Tuesday to continue their scrutiny of Israel while halting investigations into Cuba and Belarus — a move that immediately drew fire from Canada and the United States.

The decision was part of a package of reforms adopted by the members of the Human Rights Council to change how it conducts its work, including how and when to launch investigations into some of the world's worst rights offenders.

The council, which was formed last year to replace the discredited U.N. Human Rights Commission, passed the compromise package despite objections from Canada over plans to continue singling out Israel for scrutiny by the global body.

The new agreement also removes two mandates given to U.N.-appointed rights experts to examine the records of Cuba and Belarus, a move strongly criticized by non-governmental organizations, the United States and some European countries.

Nine other expert mandates, including on Haiti, Somalia, Congo, Sudan, Myanmar, North Korea and the Palestinian territories, will continue.

Israeli Ambassador Itzhak Levanon said the accord was disappointing because the council had failed to ensure that it would be "non-selective and impartial."

"It is not a bright day for the protection of human rights," Levanon said, adding that the agreement "perpetuates the immoral fixation on Israel."

The United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday voted in favor of making Israel's actions a permanent item on the council's agenda.

Of the council's 47 member states, the sole opponent of the decision to make Israel a permanent agenda item was Canada.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joined Western nations on Wednesday in criticizing the world body's own Human Rights Council for "picking on Israel" as part of an agreement on its working rules.

The European Union, Canada and the United States have already attacked the deal reached in Geneva on Monday under which Israel's actions would become a permanent item on the Human Rights Council's agenda.

A UN statement said: "The Secretary-General is disappointed at the council's decision to single out only one specific regional item given the range and scope of allegations of human rights violations throughout the world."

The statement did not mention Israel or the Palestinian Authority by name.

Alejandro Wolff, deputy U.S. permanent representative at the United Nations, accused the council of "a pathological obsession with Israel" and also denounced its action on Cuba and Belarus. "I think the record is starting to speak for itself," he told journalists.

The Geneva meeting aroused further controversy after Cuba and Belarus, both accused of abuses, were removed from a list of nine special mandates, which included North Korea, Cambodia and Sudan, carried forward from the defunct commission.