The chairs of Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs Committees are threatening to sanction the United Nations Human Rights Council and its members if the council moves forward on plans to create a new special body to investigate Israel.

Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) and Brian Mast (R-FL) wrote to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres on Tuesday regarding an upcoming resolution vote to establish a new International Investigative Mechanism (IIM) targeting Israel, the result of a Palestinian Authority push to create an alternative to the International Criminal Court probe of Israel through the UNHRC.

“Make no mistake, any HRC member state or UN entity that supports an Israel-specific IIM in any form will face the same consequences as the ICC faced for its blatant overreach and disregard for sovereign prerogatives,” the letter reads. 

“We urge you to take all action and to unequivocally reject the establishment of this open-ended mechanism at the HRC. It is imperative that the Council act judiciously given its credibility in the eyes of the American people is quickly declining,” the letter continues.

The PA’s push for a new investigative authority comes after the Trump administration sanctioned the ICC through executive order. Congress attempted, but failed, to pass similar sanctions.

The letter also highlights the UNHRC’s long-standing history of bias against Israel, including its permanent agenda item on Israel and the Commission of Inquiry investigating the Jewish state.

“This one-sided focus on Israel undermines the legitimate and genuine threat posed by real human rights abusers. This includes the Hamas terrorists who continue to hold dozens of hostages like American Edan Alexander,” the committee chairs wrote. “It’s part of a concerning and insidious anti-Israel trend within the United Nations, specifically as relates to the HRC, and appears to be little more than a bare-faced attempt to prop up other anti-Israel action at the International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ).”

When rumors first emerged about the potential resolution vote, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) predicted that it would face strong pushback from both Congress and the administration.

“My message will be simple: Any country that engages in aiding and abetting this effort will regret it,” Graham told Jewish Insider.

Mast and several House Foreign Affairs Committee subcommittee chairs also wrote to the president of the HRC, Jürg Lauber, urging him not to re-appoint Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, to a second three-year term.

That letter accuses Albanese of failing to uphold the U.N. code of conduct to remain professional, impartial, equitable and honest. It accuses her of aligning with Hamas and repeatedly spreading antisemitic tropes, and notes that she has compared Israel to the Nazi and South African apartheid regimes, going as far as to call for Israel to be removed from the United Nations.