GENEVA (AP) Israel defended its treatment of Palestinians and others on the world stage Tuesday, resuming a relationship it broke off more than a year ago with the U.N.'s top human rights body.
The appearance by Deputy Attorney General Shai Nitzan and U.N. Ambassador Eviatar Manor before the U.N.'s Human Rights Council marked the first time Israel has participated in the 47-nation body in more than a year.
Nitzan said Israel is again "open to constructive criticism" from a forum that it has long believed has an anti-Israel bias reflected in a disproportionate focus on the Jewish state's policy toward the Palestinians.
Each of the U.N.'s 193 member nations must submit to a review of its human rights record by the Geneva-based council once every four years. But because the council is less than a decade old, the second cycle of reviews for all nations is not yet complete.
Manor began the afternoon session by calling attention to an impending release of a set of Palestinian prisoners that coincides with the day of the review and was agreed to as part of the peace process. The 26 prisoners had been convicted of killing Israelis between 1984 and 1994, and most were serving life sentences.