Israel’s Foreign Ministry condemned on Sunday the expected March 31 appointment by the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) of a candidate with a long history of anti-Israel activism to a senior post.
“A U.N. mandate born from a 2014 Iran-sponsored resolution is now set to be filled by Zeina Jallad, who has voiced support for Hamas, a designated terrorist organization responsible for the October 7 massacre,” the ministry posted to X, calling the appointment “outrageous.”
The decision exposes the process as political and not about human rights, it added.
In a rare break from its own vetting process, the U.N. Human Rights Council is set to bypass its top-ranked candidate to appoint a Palestinian academic who defended the terrorist group that invaded Israel in 2023, justified violence directed against civlilians as “resistance,” and blamed the West for the Oct. 7, 2023, bloodshed.
The Foreign Ministry attached a link to an article by UN Watch, a Geneva-based group that monitors the performance of the United Nations.
According to the watchdog group, Jallad will be voted in as the next special rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights. “Its primary objective is to invert reality: claiming that Western sanctions, not repressive governments, are to blame for humanitarian crises in targeted countries,” UN Watch said.
UN Watch said the council overlooked a higher-ranked candidate in favor of Jallad, who heads the Palestine Land Studies Center at the American University of Beirut. The five-nation vetting committee had recommended Clara Portela, who wrote her doctoral thesis on “the imposition of sanctions in response to human rights violations.” But the Indonesian president of the Human Rights Council, Sidharto Suryodipuro, went to the second-ranked candidate.
UN Watch said that Jallad appears to have been chosen for two reasons. First, because she is Palestinian, “and this is considered a gesture to the Palestinian Lobby at the UN.” Second, Jallad, who is currently a legal adviser to another special rapporteur and has served as a legal expert on other U.N. bodies, is the “ultimate insider.” And the UN human rights office likes to hire those “loyal to the system,” said UN Watch.
According to the group, Jallad justified Hamas’s behavior on Oct. 7 by claiming the terrorist group had been mistreated by Western countries. “[Hamas] won the elections in 2007, so they were the elected government. What did the world do? The Americans decided to sanction the Palestinian government. The Europeans decided to boycott Hamas. The entire world bashed Hamas. And then Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza. So before talking about October 7th, let’s talk about October 6th.”
In April 2025, she said that “suspending Israel’s involvement in international organizations should be viewed as a means to uphold justice.” A month earlier, she said that “Israel is not faced with any existential threat.”
In a May 2024 article about Jordanians who shouted in support of Hamas, Jallad wrote that the chants were about the “resistance movement,” and “if you’re under occupation, fighting is resistance.”
A UN mandate born from a 2014 Iran-sponsored resolution is now set to be filled by Zeina Jallad, who has voiced support for Hamas, a designated terrorist organization responsible for the October 7 massacre.
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) March 29, 2026
An outrageous appointment exposing this process is about politics, not…
UN Watch noted that the post is nothing more than “an anti-Western political cudgel.” The outgoing mandate-holder, Alena Douhan, made official visits to China, Cuba, Iran, Syria, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. She later issued reports siding with those regimes.
“Douhan’s office has received more earmarked funding by state donors than any other U.N. rapporteur, with donations totaling over $1 million coming exclusively from China, Russia and Qatar,” the group said.
On June 19, 2018, the United States withdrew from the U.N. Human Rights Council to protest its lopsided criticism of Israel.
“Earlier this year, as it has in previous years, the Human Rights Council passed five resolutions against Israel—more than the number passed against North Korea, Iran and Syria combined,” Nikki Haley, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said in a speech announcing America’s withdrawal.
The Biden administration restored funding in 2021.
In 2025, President Donald Trump once again pulled the funding. “UNHRC has protected human rights abusers by allowing them to use the organization to shield themselves from scrutiny,” according to a Feb. 8, 2025, White House statement. “The Secretary [of State] shall withhold the United States proportionate share of the total annual amount of UN Regular Budget funding for the UNHRC.”
