v Britain has said it will vote against all future UN Human Rights Council resolutions on Israel’s conduct in the occupied territories until the body ends its “disproportion and bias” against the Jewish state.
In what has been described as a “moral breakthrough”, the UK’s mission to the UN institution said in an unprecedented statement that it was putting the council “on notice” over its lack of impartiality.
On Tuesday, Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, attacked the UNHRC’s condemnation of Israeli bombing of Hizbollah positions in the Golan Heights as “a profound absurdity”.
He described the motion condemning Israel’s policy in the Golan as “preposterous…when after all in that region we have seen the most appalling barbarity by the Assad regime”.
The policy change came after a UNHRC vote last Friday on the “occupation” of the Golan Heights.
Following the vote, the UK mission’s statement said: “Israel is a population of eight million in a world of seven billion, yet since its foundation, the Human Rights Council has adopted 135 country-specific resolutions; 68 of which [have been] against Israel. Justice is blind and impartial. This selective focus on Israel is neither.
“Syria’s regime butchers and murders its people on a daily basis. We cannot accept the perverse message sent out by a Syria Golan resolution that singles out Israel, as Assad slaughters the Syrian people.
“Nowhere is the disproportionate focus on Israel starker and more absurd than in the case of today’s resolution on the occupation of Syria’s Golan.”
A Whitehall source said that the stance on the UNHRC was indicative of a new governmental bullishness towards support for Israel: “If you thought Stephen Harper [the former Canadian Prime Minister] was pro-Israel, just you wait.”
Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch in Geneva, said the new policy was a “moral breakthrough”.