125 countries back opened-ended UNHRC war crimes probe against Israel

The United Nations General Assembly backed an unprecedented, opened war crimes probe against Israel investigating the 11-day war between Israel and Hamas (known as Guardian of the Walls in Israel) late Thursday night, with the support of 125 nations.

“Establishing a novel, permanent standing committee rather than a limited, temporary and well-defined Commission of Inquiry is unprecedented and dangerous in terms of the long-term budgetary implications for the UN organization as a whole,” the Israeli representative told the UNGA.

She accused it of funding a “mock court” against Israel.

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The probe had initially been approved in May by the 47-member UN Human Rights Council body in the aftermath of the Gaza war. Its broad mandate — approved 24-9 with 14 abstentions — allows for an investigation into alleged Israeli human rights violations on either side of the Green Line. This would include both sovereign Israel, as well as the West Bank and Gaza.

No such opened ended investigation has ever been leveled against any other UN member state.

On Thursday the matter moved to the UNGA, which was tasked with approved a budget for that investigation, as part of a larger overall budgetary allocation to the UNHRC.

Israel asked to amend the UNHRC budget resolution so that the money for the probe be excluded from the overall UNHRC budget.

It was a move that effectively put the issue of a permanent war crimes probe against Israel before the larger 193-member UNGA.

“Countries who opposed the formation of the COI [the probe] will be asked to fund a commission [probe] indefinitely,” she said.

“This means that you will have to pay for this mechanism next year. You will have to pay for this mechanism in 10 years and you will have to pay for it in 100 years,” she said.

“Since its establishment in 2006 the UNHRC has set up 32 investigative bodies, with nine nearly a third of these focused exclusively on Israel,” she said.

The UNGA did not heed her words. The amendment to defund the probe was rejected 125-8, with 34 abstentions.

The G77 and China called for a recorded vote and urged all countries to reject Israel’s amendment. Those nations, aside from Israel, who supported the amendment put forward by the Jewish state were; Hungary, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea and the United States.

The US representative said that the probe “perpetuates a practice of unfairly singling out Israel in the UN and like prior US administrations we strongly oppose such treatment of Israel.

“The US will continue to oppose this [probe] and to look for opportunities in Geneva to revisit its mandate, which unfortunately was passed when the US did not have a seat on the UNHRC,” he said.

“Moving forward the US will work in Geneva, where the debate over the [prob’s] mandate belongs to persuade more member states that it is inherently biased,” he said.

“Israel can continue to count on the US to do everything possible to shield it from discriminatory and unbalanced criticism whether at the UNHRC or elsewhere in the UN system,” he said.

Among those 34 countries that abstained were: Albania, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burundi, Canada, Central African Republic, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Fiji, Germany, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Italy, Lithuania, Madagascar, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Republic of Korea, Rwanda, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay and Zambia.

Australia and Canada, who have a strong record of supporting Israel, both took the floor to explain their decision to abstain, noting that they often strove to support funding for UNHRC commissions of inquiry even when they opposed them.

Australia said that it was not a member of the UNHRC and could not vote on the resolution when it was approved in May.

“We oppose anti-Israel bias,” its representative said.

“Australia supports human rights resourcing even for mandates we do not support,” he said. But he explained that the mandate for this particular probe “is excessively broad” and “over resourced.”

He added that Australia affirms “Israel’s right to self-defense in accordance with international law.”

Canada said that at this point in the process, the UNGA should be looking at funding and not revisiting the UNHRC decisions with regard to investigations.

But he said this probe was a particularly “unacceptable outlier” and that the resources needed were “significantly larger than” that those allocated for “all of the investigations we improved resources for today.”