B’nai B’rith International President Charles O. Kaufman and CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin have issued the following statement:   
At each meeting of the United Nations World Health Organization it further sullies its own reputation and mission. 

The latest hypocritical outrage that further politicizes the World Health Organization and the entire U.N. system is a vote earlier this week at WHO’s annual assembly singling out Israel by critiquing “Health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan.”

The 96-11 vote on the resolution, not surprisingly sponsored by the Arab bloc and the Palestinian delegation, demonstrates the inherent bias of the organization. There were 21 items to be considered, but only one of those was country-specific.

The barbarity of the eight-year-long civil war in Syria? Not singled out. It is well known that for the duration of the war in Syria, Israel has treated civilian casualties of that fighting. The common knowledge that Israel treats thousands of Palestinians in its hospitals and health facilities every day? Not noted. If WHO really wanted to address humanitarian issues, what about focusing on the current crisis in Venezuela, which is facing widespread and devastating shortages of food and medicine?

We commend the United States, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary and Israel for seeing through this shameless resolution and rejecting it.

As if the main resolution were not abhorrent enough, the session included a one-sided anti-Israel report about “trauma injuries and exposure to violence during the ‘Great March of Return.’” This is the same march that saw Hamas-backed Palestinian snipers shooting at Israeli soldiers defending Israel’s sovereign borders, fire kites launched into Israel that burned countless acres of farmland and Hamas encouraging women and children to rush the border fence.    

Once again, the United Nations system cannot be trusted to serve the humanitarian needs of the global community.