Germany's "Shameful" Two Years on the UN Security Council
by Soeren Kern • January 1, 2021 at 5:00 am
A closer examination of Germany's voting patterns at the UN over the past several years, however, reveals a troubling double standard on a range of issues, especially on human rights, which the German government claims to be "a cornerstone" of its foreign policy.
The record shows that during its stint on the UN Security Council, Germany voted for dozens of resolutions — many of which smack of anti-Semitism — that singled out Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.
Moreover, Germany turned a blind eye as multiple serial human rights abusers, including China, Libya, Mauritania, Sudan and Venezuela, among others, were elected to the UN Human Rights Council, the UN's highest human rights body.
In 2020, Germany voted 13 times to condemn Israel, but failed to introduce a single resolution on the human rights situation in Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Venezuela — or on 175 other countries, according to UN Watch, a Geneva-based, independent non-governmental watchdog group.
"While nearly all EU countries backed 13 out of 17 UNGA resolutions singling out Israel this year, they failed to introduce even one resolution for women's right activists jailed and tortured in Saudi Arabia, dissident artists arrested in Cuba, journalists thrown behind bars in Turkey, religious minorities attacked in Pakistan, and opposition members persecuted in Venezuela, where more than five million people have fled government repression, hunger and economic collapse." — UN Watch, December 16, 2020.
Germany pursued a similar policy of approving anti-Israel resolutions at the UN in 2018, 2017, and 2016, when Germany voted for an especially disgraceful UN resolution, co-sponsored by the Arab group of states and the Palestinian delegation, that singled out Israel as the world's only violator of "mental, physical and environmental health."
Germany's two-year term as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council ended on December 31, 2020. The German Foreign Ministry, in a self-congratulatory compilation of its supposed achievements to "strengthen the international order," declared that Germany now deserves to obtain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
A closer examination of Germany's voting patterns at the UN over the past several years, however, reveals a troubling double standard on a range of issues, especially on human rights, which the German government claims to be "a cornerstone" of its foreign policy.
The record shows that during its stint on the UN Security Council, Germany voted for dozens of resolutions — many of which smack of anti-Semitism — that singled out Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.
