In another big move, US President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced that the United States would withdraw from the top UN human rights body. He also asserted the US will not resume funding for the UN agency helping Palestinian refugees.
Big blow to Palestinian refugees
The Bident administration left the Geneva-based Human Rights Council last year, and it stopped funding the agency assisting Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA. The move came after Israel accused it of harboring Hamas militants who participated in the surprise October 7, 2023, attacks in southern Israel, which UNRWA denies.
Trump meets Netanyahu
Trump’s decision to withdraw from the top UN human rights body followed by his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose country has long accused both the rights body and UNRWA of bias against Israel and antisemitism.
Trump’s executive orders also call for a review of American involvement in the Paris-based UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, known as UNESCO, and a review of US funding for the United Nations in light of “the wild disparities in levels of funding among different countries.”
US pays 22 per cent of the UN’s budget
The United States, with the world’s largest economy, pays 22 per cent of the UN’s regular operating budget, with China the second-largest contributor.
“I’ve always felt that the UN has tremendous potential. It’s not living up to that potential right now….They’ve got to get their act together,” Trump said.
The UN needs “to be fair to countries that deserve fairness,” he said, adding that there are some countries, which he didn’t name, that are “outliers, that are very bad and they’re being almost preferred.”
Before Trump’s announcement, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric reiterated the Human Rights Council’s importance and UNRWA’s work in delivering “critical services to Palestinians.”
Trump also pulled the US out of the Human Rights Council in June 2018. His ambassador to the UN at the time, Nikki Haley, accused the council of “chronic bias against Israel” and pointed to what she said were human rights abusers among its members.
President Joe Biden renewed support for the Human Rights Council, and the US won a seat on the 47-nation body in October 2021.
But the Biden administration announced in late September that the United States would not seek a second consecutive term.
Trump’s order on Tuesday has little concrete effect because the United States is already not a council member, said council spokesperson Pascal Sim. But like all other UN member countries, the US automatically has informal observer status and will still have a seat in the council’s ornate round chamber at the UN complex in Geneva.
UNRWA was established by the UN General Assembly in 1949 to provide assistance for Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes before and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that followed Israel’s establishment, as well as for their descendants.
It provides aid, education, health care and other services to some 2.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as 3 million more in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
Before the October 7 Hamas attacks, UNRWA ran schools for Gaza’s 650,000 children as well as health facilities, and helped deliver humanitarian aid.
It has continued to provide health care and been key to the delivery of food and other aid to Palestinians during the war.
(With AP inputs)