UN Human Rights Council: UK Voting Record on Israel
Debate between Peter Dowd and Scott Benton(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the UK voting record at the UN Human Rights Council on Israel.
[Interruption.]
Peter Dowd (in the Chair)
Order. There is a Division in the House, but we do not have to suspend the sitting unless Members wish to do so.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Mr Dowd, I would like to suspend the sitting and take part in the Division.
Peter Dowd (in the Chair)
Can we move on? I call the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton).
Scott Benton
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd, for the first Westminster Hall debate that I have had the privilege to lead. I refer Members to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests for a fact-finding visit I undertook to Israel and the Palestinian Authority in 2019.
The landmark peace agreements signed between Israel and her Arab neighbours in recent months are an extremely welcome development after years of stagnation, but it is an unavoidable reality that the unrelenting attacks on Israel at the United Nations make regional peace harder to achieve.
It is no secret that the UN and its associated bodies have a long history of singling out Israel far more than any other nation in the world. Past UN Secretaries-General have publicly raised concerns about the UN’s fixation with Israel, with Ban Ki-moon stating in 2016 that
“decades of political manoeuvring have created a disproportionate number of resolutions, reports and committees against Israel.”
He rightly said that this bias does not help the Palestinian issue but instead foils
“the ability of the UN to fulfil its role effectively”.
His predecessor, Kofi Annan, said that while Israel faces “intense scrutiny”,
“other situations fail to elicit the world’s outrage and condemnations.”
The current UN Secretary-General has said that Israel
“needs to be treated as any other state”.