Congress Planning to Defund UN as Critics Seek Full Withdrawal
thenewamerican.com, Alex Newman
U.S. lawmakers and pro-Israel activists are calling for an end to American taxpayer funding of the United Nations after a controversial UN Security Council vote declared some Israeli settlements to be illegal. Congress is already planning to cut the UN's funding in response to the UN scheme. The growing outrage also came from President-elect Donald Trump, who vowed that the UN situation would change once he is in the Oval Office. But other critics of the UN said defunding the “dictators club” would not be enough, and that it was past time for the U.S. government and other civilized member states to ditch the scandal-plagued global body altogether.
The most recent wave of outrage surrounding the UN came in response to UN Security Council Resolution 2334, a deeply controversial measure adopted on December 23 with 14 votes in favor and the Obama administration abstaining. Among other controversies, the measure purports to declare the Jewish presence in parts of Jerusalem and an area known to Jews as Judea and Samaria (“West Bank” to Arabs) to be a “flagrant violation” of what the UN likes to call “international law.” Basically, the UN and more than a few of its autocratic member regimes do not think Jews should be allowed to live in East Jerusalem and other areas.
Unsurprisingly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted the UN and its “shameful” resolution, vowing to ignore it and curtail relations with the governments and regimes responsible for the scheme. “Israel rejects the anti-Israel resolution at the United Nations,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement ridiculing the UN. “Israel looks forward to working with President-elect Trump and with all our friends in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, to negate the harmful effects of this absurd resolution.”
Trump, a longtime critic of the UN and globalism in general, was among those to speak out, albeit more mildly than on the campaign trail. “The United Nations has such great potential but right now it is just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time. So sad!,” said Trump on social media after having previously noted that the UN was not a friend of Israel, freedom, or the United States. Unfortunately, as explained by its own founders, the UN was always designed to be progressively strengthened. And it already does much more damage than it would if it were merely a place for people to talk and have a good time at taxpayer expense. Trump sent out another statement blasting Obama and the UN, urging Israel to “stay strong” because “January 20th is fast approaching!”
But the world may not have to wait until Trump is sworn in for concrete action. Leading Democrats and Republicans alike have fervently denounced the UN and slammed the Obama administration for failing to exercise the U.S. government's veto to stop the scheme. Even ultra-far-left U.S. lawmakers slammed the UN scheme, with Congressman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) blasting it as “a one-sided, biased resolution.” Incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), another pro-UN globalist who also happens to be pro-Israel, blasted the UN as a “fervently anti-Israel body” that has been that way since it declared Zionism to be racism. Other Democrats also rushed to put out statements condemning the UN resolution.
Republicans — even of the globalist and neocon variety — were also furious at the UN vote. Perhaps most vocal was conservative Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who is leading the charge to cut all U.S. funding to the UN. “The disgraceful anti-Israel resolution passed by the UNSC was apparently only the opening salvo in the Obama administration’s final assault on Israel,” he was quoted as saying, reminding Obama that Congress reconvenes soon and that under the U.S. Constitution, Congress controls the money. On social media, he said: “No US $ for UN until reversed.” Other GOP lawmakers agreed.
Even neocon globalist and reliable establishment figure Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who chairs the Senate appropriations subcommittee for the State Department and foreign operations, vowed to push for Congress to stop funding the UN. “The UN has made it impossible for us to continue with business as usual,” Graham said. “Almost every Republican will feel like this is a betrayal of Israel and the only response that we have is the power of purse.”
“This is a road we haven’t gone down before,” Graham was quoted as saying in media reports, adding that the UN was increasingly being viewed as anti-Semitic. “If you can’t show the American people that international organizations can be more responsible, there is going to be a break. And I am going to lead that break.” A number of other GOP senators have already pledged their support, and media reports suggested that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would also be on board.
Senate aides quoted in a number of media reports said a variety of options were under consideration. Among them: defunding the UN, defunding certain UN programs and policies, withdrawing from UN agencies such as the communist-controlled UNESCO, and even passing legislation to protect any Jews targeted by the UN who may also be American citizens. Also being considered is cutting off funds for the U.S. taxpayer-funded Palestinian Authority, and even the possibility of expelling its diplomats in the United States.
While the situation is likely to get more dramatic after Trump is sworn in, congressional officials speaking to reporters off the record said action could begin as soon as next week when lawmakers reconvene. “We will make a very strong attempt to do something immediately,” one senior GOP senate aide told the pro-Obama, pro-Clinton, pro-UN Washington Post. “It is a real moment to re-examine the relationship with the United Nations and what it really does.”
Even Israel's most vehement American critics have realized that the UN's behavior is bizarre — the UN and its various agencies have condemned Israel more often than all other governments on earth, combined. The U.S. government, of course, pays more for the UN than 185 other member governments and dictators — combined. And yet the UN, when it is not demonizing Israel, spends much of its time haranguing Americans and others to surrender their God-given rights under various guises.
From free speech and religious freedom to gun rights and due process, the UN has become increasingly bold and vicious when it comes to attacking the unalienable rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights. It is also increasingly threatening U.S. independence and self-government as it seeks to empower itself as what UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon called the “Parliament of Humanity.”
For those reasons and others, The John Birch Society, a constitutionalist group with chapters in all 50 states, has long worked to not just defund the UN, but to get the U.S. government out of the UN and the UN off U.S. soil. “For over 56 years, The John Birch Society has been warning and educating the American people of the danger called the United Nations,” JBS CEO Art Thompson said, a reference to the 56-year-old “Get US Out of the United Nations” campaign. “The recent brouhaha is only the tip of the iceberg relative to the harm that the UN has done since its very founding by those who wish to destroy the independence of the United States — indeed all nations — on the road to a one world government led by megalomaniacs.”
Other prominent commentators also referenced the JBS campaign amid the recent furor over the Israeli settlements resolution. Conservative commentator and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan picked up on comments by senators Schumer and Graham blasting and threatening the UN to illustrate the escalating fury over the global outfit. “If the folks over at the John Birch Society still have some of those bumper stickers — Get the U.S. out of the U.N., and the U.N. out of the U.S.! — they might FedEx a batch over to Schumer and Graham,” Buchanan quipped in his latest column. “May have some converts here.”
More than a few other prominent conservative commentators said plans to defund the UN did not go far enough. David Greenfield at FrontPage Magazine went through a litany of UN crimes, abuses, and horrors before saying that “we and every sane country” should have defunded the UN decades ago. “If you give money to the U.N., it will end up anywhere and everywhere except where it’s supposed to go,” he continued. “But defunding the U.N. isn’t enough. There is no reason for us to remain there at all.”
He said the U.S. government should “defund and withdraw” from the scandal-plagued outfit. “The billions we waste on the U.N. will go toward taking care of our people,” he added. “And once we are free of the U.N., we will actually be able to promote real human rights instead of pandering to the dictators and Islamists of the United Nations.”
Former Senator and GOP presidential contender Rick Santorum, meanwhile, said the growing crisis in relations between the UN and the U.S. government was the perfect opportunity for those seeking to abolish the UN altogether. “This has opened up the opportunity for those of us who are very anti-U.N., who think that it has passed its prime, it’s not serving any really good purpose, it’s not helping legitimate governments around the world and it’s outlived its usefulness,” he was quoted as saying. “To the extent we can deconstruct it, the better.”
Santorum also suggested Trump's focus could now move from NATO, a UN subsidiary, to the UN itself. “The focus will come off NATO and will move squarely onto the U.N.,” Santorum explained to a pro-UN propagandist at the anti-Trump Washington Post, which claimed the U.S. was better off with a functioning UN in a propaganda piece about the upcoming “war” between Trump and the UN. “It’s going to be a very raucous time. Barack Obama, with this move, did more damage to the United Nations than he did to Israel.”
Conservative media outlet WND is circulating a petition slamming the UN and calling for a U.S. withdrawal. “It is outrageous an organization hosted on American soil, protected by American arms, funded by American tax dollars and built upon a global order sustained by the United States seemingly spends all its time attacking America and its ally Israel,” reads the petition, signed by thousands of people so far since it was published on December 27. “The United States should stand with its allies and in defense of its own principles rather than continuing to pay the bills of an organization which has all but openly declared itself an enemy both of our Republic and the besieged Jewish State.”
Writing in PJ Media, Roger Simon, co-founder of the conservative outlet, also said it was time to take on the UN. Ridiculing the UN as a “moribund center of international corruption and megaphone for tin-pot dictators,” Simon suggested that Trump could find savings to rebuild the military and U.S. infrastructure by ending funding of the “clowns” at the UN. “Although, in this case, it would be useful to negotiate the entire institution out of existence, or at least impoverish it to the degree it will have to decamp from Manhattan and leave that pricey Turtle Bay real estate for better purposes,” he said, adding that there is apparently lots of empty space in Yemen.
“I wouldn't doubt you would have all your deplorables solidly behind you in this negotiation/defunding and a lot more of the country as well, once they get full knowledge of exactly how much we're actually paying for this insanity,” Simon continued. “As with most things, they haven't been told by our media, who have no interest in informing the public on anything that might disrupt their narrative.” But the truth is getting out anyway, and the American people overwhelmingly think the UN is doing a bad job.
Even some neocons and establishment loyalists called for taking serious action against the rogue international body. Columnist and establishment talking head Charles Krauthammer, for example, a member of the globalist Council on Foreign Relations that has been instrumental in surrendering U.S. sovereignty for generations, suggested on Fox News’ “Special Report” that Trump should turn UN headquarters in New York City into condos.
“We’re paying an organization that spends half its time — more than half its time and energy and resources and bureaucracy trying to attack the only Jewish state on the planet, a tiny little spec, while genocide, mayhem, murder, terrorism is going on all over the world,” declared Krauthammer, a neocon. “It’s an obsession that to an outside a observer appears to be insane. And the rest of the time is spent undermining the United States and democracy [sic] and our allies around the world. It is an organization that exacerbates tensions, it does not assuage them…. It turned out to be a disaster.”
While stopping short of calling for an American exit (Amexit) from the UN, Krauthammer did suggest getting the UN out of the United States. “Any move to minimize our support for it, any move to get it out of the U.S. — imagine if [UN] headquarters were in Zimbabwe. The amount of weight and coverage it would get would be zero. I think that’s good real estate in downtown New York City, and Trump ought to find a way to put his name on it and turn it into condos.” Considering the UN’s three tributes to mass-murdering Cuban dictator Fidel Castro so far in the weeks after his death, Havana might make a good spot for UN headquarters as well.
With the UN, there is much more at stake than Israeli settlements. And there are plenty of reasons to support a U.S. government withdrawal, or an “Amexit,” from the UN beyond the recent resolution. Legislation to secure an Amexit, the American Sovereignty Restoration Act, has been introduced in practically every Congress for decades. With lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and large swaths of the American public in outrage mode over the latest anti-Israel vote, the time has never been better to Get US Out of the United Nations. Concerned Americans should contact their elected representatives to make their feelings known.
Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is normally based in Europe. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU. He can be reached at anewman@thenewamerican.com.
