UN Human Rights Council ‘obsessive-compulsive’ on Israel — envoy

Israel’s ambassador to United Nations in Geneva, Eviatar Manor, lambasted the UN’s Human Rights Council on Friday for “obsessively” condemning Israeli government policies time and again, even as large-scale human rights violations occur in other parts of the globe on a daily basis.

Speaking during a session with members of the council in Geneva, Manor said the UN body suffers from an “obsessive-compulsive disorder” with regard to Israel and repeatedly comes to similar conclusions about the Jewish state, according to Army Radio.

“Clinically, the diagnosis in the context of this behavior is an increased risk of suicide, and that is where the council is headed,” he said.

Manor went on to point out that other countries do not receive remotely comparable attention from the council, despite the fact that millions of people worldwide are victims of violent human rights abuses. He warned that should the council continue to ignore violations in other countries and focus solely on Israel, the body would become irrelevant in the eyes of the international community.

“There are 4.8 million Syrian refugees, in Yemen, 7.6 million people are starving, and 14 million have no access to medical facilities,” Manor said. “Since January, the council passed five resolutions against Israel and zero in other cases. This is shameful, and demonstrates how the council ignores the human rights of millions of people,” he concluded.

On Thursday, a UN watchdog group reported that the UNHRC had tapped a British professor, who has accused Israel of apartheid and compared it to the Islamic State, to be its investigator into human rights violations in the Palestinian territories. A committee charged with reviewing candidates to replace Makarim Wibisono, who will leave the position at the end of March, has recommended Penny Green — a professor of law and globalization at Queen Mary University of London — as its first choice for the role.

According to UN Watch, Green, based on her official Twitter feed, “accuses Israel of ‘criminal state practices,’ ‘ethnic cleansing,’ and ‘apartheid.’” She has lamented that the US and UK haven’t yet started “bombing Israel for its massacres,” as they have the Islamic State.

She also supports the total boycott of Israel and has posted tweets in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Support BDS against Israel – best way to resist this criminal government: Five Things That Netanyahu Actually Said https://t.co/BpF3bSBGB5

— Penny Green (@pennyjgreen) October 23, 2015

In February, outgoing rapporteur Wibisono accused Israeli security forces of using excessive force against Palestinians.

He said in his resignation letter that his “efforts to help improve the lives of Palestinian victims of violations under the Israeli occupation have been frustrated every step of the way,” because Israel didn’t give him access to the Palestinian territories.

Wibisono told the Human Rights Council that the Palestinian violence that’s raged since October of last year came amid Israel’s construction of “illegal” West Bank settlements. He branded Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, designed to prevent the import of weapons by the terror group, a “stranglehold” and “collective punishment.”