State Department Spokesperson Ned Price criticized the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry against Israel due to its “one-sided, biased approach.”
He also called the document “open-ended and vaguely defined,” according to a June 7 State Department release.
“Israel is the only country subject to a standing agenda item at the HRC and has received disproportionate focus at the HRC compared to human rights situations elsewhere in the world,” Price said, according to the release. “While no country is above scrutiny, the existence of this COI in its current form is a continuation of a longstanding pattern of unfairly singling out Israel.”
This type of criticism against the Council on Israel by the U.S. isn't unique. The Trump administration withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council in 2018, citing reasons that largely mirror the Biden administration’s criticism against the COI, Yahoo News reported.
According to the HRC website, the standing terms for investigation into the ongoing human rights situation in Israel mandate the COI report findings to the HRC and General Assembly on an annual basis. The mandate states the COI will work toward investigation of the alleged violations of “humanitarian international law” since April 13, 2021.
The COI is tasked with the investigation of special persons, events and other relevant information pertaining to the violation of human rights in the region as well as the documentation and verification of such accounts, according to the website. The commission will collect information from “a wide variety of sources,” which include travel to the area and interviewing witnesses and victims.
