THE US State Department announced yesterday that it would boycott the United Nations human rights council’s entire discussion about Israeli rights abuses and vote against any resolutions that come out of it.

“The United States strongly and unequivocally opposes the existence of the UN human rights council’s agenda item seven: Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories,” said acting spokesman Mark Toner.

This item, which was scheduled for discussion last night, is a permanent fixture requiring the council to discuss three times each year abuses of human rights committed by Israel against Palestinians.