WarSclerotic

The United Nations Human Rights Council postponed its periodic review of Israel’s human rights record on Tuesday, after Jerusalem said it would boycott the proceedings due to what it perceives as a bias against it.

The Council stated that the review would take place no later than November 2013, and urged president Remigiusz Henczel to “take all appropriate steps and measures, in accordance with his mandate, to urge the State under Review to resume its cooperation with the Universal Periodic Review mechanism.” It also expressed “regret” at Israel’s boycott.

Israel has had a tense relationship with the council since its inception in 2006. The council has censured it more than any other country and has created a special mechanism, Agenda Item 7, that ensures Israel’s activity in the West Bank is a subject of debate at every council session.

Israel cut its ties with the UNHRC in March after the council approved a fact-finding mission to investigate Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank.

UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer slammed the Council, saying that “a jury of brigands is not justice, it’s a travesty,”

“We regret that today’s resolution failed to acknowledge the elephant in the room: the council’s systematic bias against Israel,” he said.

Meanwhile, a group of eight Israeli human rights organizations released a joint statement urging Jerusalem to use the “golden opportunity” to reverse its boycott of the UN body.

“Refusal to participate in the session on human rights first and foremost harms human beings – Israeli citizens and residents and residents of the territory that Israel controls – whose rights were to be the subject of today’s session,” the groups said. “It is legitimate for Israel to express criticism of the work of the Council and its recommendations, but Israel should do so through engagement with the Universal Periodic Review, as it has done in previous sessions.”

The organizations included Gisha, Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Adalah, Bimkom, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, Rabbis for Human Rights, Yesh Din, and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel.

The Council’s decision to postpone the review came despite a Monday statement by spokesman Rolando Gomez, who warned that the proceedings would move forward regardless of Israel’s attendance.

With the move not to attend its Universal Periodic Review, Israel became the first ever country to boycott the Council sessions that all 193 member states usually participate in.

It is the council which Israel objects to, not the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of its human rights record, which it underwent in 2008.

The US Ambassador to the UNHRC Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe said last week that the council had a strong bias against Israel that had not gone away.

Still, she said, “We have encouraged Israel to come to the UPR, to tell its story, to present its own narrative of its human rights situation. We think it is a good opportunity to do that.”

Reuters contributed to this report.