Israel says it won’t cooperate with UN rights team over ‘bias’

Seats are prepared for a session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, on September 13, 2021. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images via JTA)
Seats are prepared for a session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, on September 13, 2021. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images via JTA)

Israel formally announces that it will not cooperate with a special commission formed by the United Nations’ top human rights body to investigate alleged abuses against Palestinians, saying the probe and its chairwoman are unfairly biased against Israel.

The decision, delivered in a scathing letter to the commission’s head, Navi Pillay, further strains what already is a tense relationship between Israel and the UN-backed Human Rights Council in Geneva.

“It is obvious to my country, as it should be to any fair-minded observer, that there is simply no reason to believe that Israel will receive reasonable, equitable and non-discriminatory treatment from the Council, or from this Commission of Inquiry,” reads the letter, signed by Meirav Eilon Shahar, Israel’s ambassador to the UN and International Organizations in Geneva.

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