Outgoing UN Human Rights Commissioner Demonizes Israel
As she prepares to step down from her position, United Nations Human Rights Office High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet accused Israel of plotting to keep her staff out of the country. “In 2020, the 15 international staff of my office in Palestine – which has been operating in the country for 26 years – had no choice but to leave,” Bachelet said. “Israel’s treatment of our staff is part of a wider and worrying trend to block human rights access to the occupied Palestinian territory. This raises the question of what exactly the Israeli authorities are trying to hide.”
Bachelet is no stranger to opposing Israel. A statement from Israel’s mission to the UN described her as a “mouthpiece for the Palestinian Authority.” The statement continued, “She has also spent years… refusing to name Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, and refusing to condemn violations of human rights by the Palestinians.” Bachelet’s office formerly released a blacklist of 112 Israeli companies operating in Judea and Samaria, leading Israel to suspend ties with her in 2020. Despite her fixation with Palestinians in Israel, she has failed to release a report she promised to deliver concerning human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region in light of her imminent departure from her post.
If you wanted proof of the UN’s bias against Israel, here’s a good example. With nothing to lose by speaking her mind on her way out, the UN Human Rights Office High Commissioner made it a priority to smear Israel in her official statement. Her choice of words was very revealing, including “Palestine” (there is no state or even land currently known as Palestine) and the “occupied Palestinian territory” (referring to rightful Israeli land that the Palestinian Authority rejected because of its refusal to recognize, negotiate, or make peace with Israel). This rhetoric is used in an effort to normalize the idea that Israel is trespassing in Palestinian land, while the truth is that the land is Israel’s, despite repeated violent attempts to usurp it from the Jewish people. The UN has historically had an antisemitism problem, and Bachelet has exacerbated it. But when she officially leaves, it will mean there is one less antisemite in the UN.
