RAMALLAH, June 20, 2018 (WAFA) – Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee Member  Hanan Ashrawi Wednesday lambasted the United States for withdrawing from the United Nations Human Rights Council in a show of unqualified support for the occupation power, Israel.

"It is not surprising that the United States administration, which gives orders to snatch crying babies from their parents‘ arms and which partners with Israel, a cruel and belligerent military occupier that holds an entire nation captive, has withdrawn from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC),” said Ashrawi in a statement.

“US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley‘s claim that UNHRC is ‘a hypocritical and self-serving organization that makes a mockery of human rights‘ is both deceptive and blatantly untrue. The UNHRC is an effective international body with an active mandate to promote and protect human rights around the world,” she said.

Ashrawi said the US President Donald Trump’s administration has targeted multilateral and regional organizations and agreements, most notably UNESCO, the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and it has attacked NATO and Europe, while violating international law and UN resolutions concerning the occupied Palestinian territory.

“Clearly, the United States is subverting international law, its instruments and mechanisms for the sake of maintaining the impunity of Israel, the only remaining military occupation in the world,” she said.

“The problem is not with the just and functioning global order, but with Israel, which persists in committing lethal violations and war crimes against the Palestinian people. The U.S. administration‘s blind commitment to Israel and its proven track record of human rights violations will succeed in isolating it in the international arena and undermining its influence and standing globally,” said the PLO official.

“The United States would do better to rectify the situation and bring such unconscionable and irreprehensible behavior to an end, rather than to target precisely those organizations and institutions entrusted with holding the violator to account while protecting the victim."

M.K.