Senator Ted Cruz thinks that the U.S. should refuse to send any money to the UN until that organization reverses the anti-Israel resolution on settlements passed on Friday.
“No US $ for UN until reversed,” he added. That comment suggests that Cruz has made his mind up since Friday, when he said he looked forward to working with Sen. Lindsey Graham and President-elect Trump “to significantly reduce or even eliminate U.S. funding of the United Nations, and also to seriously reconsider financial support for the nations that supported this resolution.”
n a 14-0 vote on Friday, the U.N. Security Council condemned Israel for settlements in areas of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Obama administration abstained on the measure, marking a significant shift of U.S. policy just weeks before Obama completes his second term in the White House.
Obama ordered the veto of a similar resolution in 2011, but his administration has grown increasingly critical of the settlements in the past year and frustrated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, which the Obama team sees as partially responsible for the failure of recent Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Friday’s abstention prompted a wave of criticism from Trump, Republicans and even members of the Democratic Party.
“It is extremely frustrating, disappointing and confounding that the administration has failed to veto this resolution,” said incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. “[I]ts actions will move us further from peace in the Middle East.”
Graham revealed Saturday that he plans to introduce a measure to cut funding to the U.N. unless it repeals the resolution about the Israeli settlements.
The United States contributes about $3 billion a year to the UN’s regular and peacekeeping budgets. That’s more than 20% of the regular budget total and 29% of the peacekeeping budget. All told, including voluntary and mandatory funds supplied courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer, the U.S. gives the UN $8 billion a year. Our contributions represent more than 176 other nations’ contributions combined.
It’s about time that we start using that enormous leverage to protect ourselves and our allies. Membership in the UN is not a suicide pact, nor is it mandatory that the U.S. be made a sucker by funding an organization where fat-cat diplomats gladly take our money in the morning only to spew hate at us in the afternoon. We are under no obligation to take that kind of abuse and it’s about time someone informed the rest of the anti-American world of that fact.
Israel can take care of itself — except in the international arena where so many have their hands raised against it. Since the birth of the Jewish state in 1948, the U.S. has had Israel’s back in various international forums, including most especially the United Nations. And that’s what makes Obama’s betrayal so cynical and shocking.
Everyone on the planet knows he ordered the U.S. to abstain from the resolution at least in part to stick a finger in the eye of a leader he detests. He let personal pique drive U.S. policy — a dangerous vendetta against Prime Minister Netanyahu, whose only crime is that he thwarted President Obama’s efforts to bring about “peace” between Jews and Arabs.
The UN’s idea of “peace” would include wiping Israel off the map by shrinking its borders to indefensible limits. That’s the reality that Prime Minister Netanyahu must deal with and a reality that President Obama apparently wouldn’t mind seeing.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member