No other way to view this other than a tacit approval of the anti-Israel, pro-Islamist UNHRC agenda.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration announced on Wednesday that it will seek a new term on the United Nations Human Rights Council despite concerns that the panel remains a hotbed of anti-Israel sentiment and a forum for repressive nations to deflect attention from abuses they may have committed.

The State Department said the U.S. intends to run in 2012 for another three-year term on the oft-criticized council. Officials said the U.S. believes its presence on the panel for the past two years has helped steer it in the right direction and that it can continue to do so.

The department said that the U.S. has helped mobilize the council to take on crises in countries such as Iran, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kyrgyzstan and Libya — which was a member until earlier this month, when it was suspended over its violent crackdown on anti-government protesters. The officials said U.S. membership had also been key to the council taking on issues that include women’s rights, discrimination based on sexual orientation and restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly.

“Taken collectively, the actions taken by the 16th Human Rights Council represent a significant positive change in the council’s trajectory,” State Department spokesman Mark Tonier said in a statement announcing the decision.

The U.S. had shunned the council and its predecessor, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, during President George W. Bush’s administration because its membership included rights abusers that Washington said focused unfairly on Israel and ignored atrocities throughout Asia, Africa and the Middle East. But when President Barack Obama came into office in 2009, his administration sought to re-engage the council, arguing the U.S. could do more good as a member than as an outside critic.

Obama and his foreign policy team were roundly criticized for running for, and winning, a seat on the 47-nation, Geneva-based council, particularly after it considered the so-called “Goldstone Report,” which called equally on Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas to probe and prosecute any war crimes stemming from the 2009 Gaza conflict or face scrutiny by the International Criminal Court. The U.S. and Israel fought to keep the report from being referred to other U.N. bodies.