President Joseph Biden, Jr. rejoins the anti-Israel United Nations Human Rights Council as announced by U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on Monday through a statement, reversing what former President Donald Trump has done three years ago.
"The United States will engage with the Council as an observer will have the opportunity to speak in the Council, participate in negotiations, and partner with others to introduce resolutions," Blinken said.
Breitbart reported that Trump withdrew from the council in 2018 after exhausting efforts for reform against its anti-Israel program specified in its Agenda 7.
"We recognize that the Human Rights Council is a flawed body, in need of reform to its agenda, membership, and focus, including its disproportionate focus on Israel," Blinken pointed out. "However, our withdrawal in June 2018 did nothing to encourage meaningful change, but instead created a vacuum of U.S. leadership, which countries with authoritarian agendas have used to their advantage."
Blinken explained that the decision is out of perceiving engagement with the Council and its members "in a principled fashion" as "the best way" to improve it out of the belief that "when the U.S. engages constructively with the Council, in concert with our allies and friends positive change is within reach."
As per Breitbart, the U.S. will have until end of the year as a non-voting observer status and is actually eyeing to become a full member of the Council during its General Assembly while it works on establishing closer relations with the United Nations. It actually seeks one of the full member seats held currently by Austria, Denmark, and Italy that come for election this October when the General Assembly takes place. During the General Assembly, the United Nations decides in a vote to fill its three-year term vacancies at the 47-member-state council.
Biden's decision to rejoin the Council, however, has met a lot of negative criticism especially from David Friedman who was former U.S. Ambassador to Israel under Trump's Administration.
"Well here's a terrible policy: rejoining the UNHRC," Friedman told Breitbart.
"Who is leading the U.N.'s commission on human rights? China, which places its undesirables in concentration camps, Russia that jails its dissidents, and Cuba! Who is the permanent target? Israel," he pointed out. "Donald Trump and Nikki Haley got it exactly right by withdrawing!"
Haley, former United Nations Envoy under Trump, described the United Nations Human Rights Commission as a "bully pulpit for human rights violators" since Israel has, unlike any other country, received resolutions against it basically for its "very existence."
"No other country--not Iran, not Syria, not North Korea--has an agenda item devoted solely to it. Agenda Item 7 is not directed at anything Israel does. It is directed at the very existence of Israel. It is a blazing red siren signaling the Human Rights Council's political corruption and moral bankruptcy," Haley revealed to Breitbart.
Haley said China, Cuba, Eritrea, Russia, and Venezuela "make a mockery of the Human Rights Council." Yet despite this, Trump was not able to convince the 125 members of the Council to make the necessary reforms especially on Agenda Item 7 because the "authoritarian regimes are happy with the status quo."
"In the end, the United States couldn't convince enough countries to stand up and declare the Human Rights Council was no longer worthy of its name," she ended.
