UN Funding Threatened After Attacks on U.S. Jerusalem Decision

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Responding to a UN General Assembly vote rejecting the U.S. government’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the Trump administration and a wide array of prominent lawmakers warned that American taxpayer funding of the United Nations was at risk. Foreign aid to anti-American governments and tyrants may also be drying up soon, the president warned. If the Trump administration makes good on its threats connected to the vote, Americans may soon be saving many billions of dollars annually — and potentially even U.S. sovereignty, too.

Unsurprisingly, the increasingly discredited establishment media painted the meaningless UN resolution as a black eye for President Trump. In reality, though, as the dictators club becomes increasingly aggressive in playing wannabe “world government,” it is very possible that the Trump administration and the American people will get the last laugh. Already, even globalist-minded U.S. lawmakers are speaking out against the UN. Meanwhile, the movement advocating a complete U.S. withdrawal from the UN continues to grow stronger.

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The latest UN temper tantrum about America began in early December, when Trump fulfilled his campaign promise to recognize Israel’s sovereignty and move the U.S. embassy there to Jerusalem, in accordance with U.S. law. Of course, Israel considers Jerusalem its capital, and that is where the Israeli Parliament and Supreme Court are located. For Islamic dictators and their allies, along with many European powers, the Kremlin, and others, though, some of which do not even recognize Israel’s right to exist, that was unacceptable.

And so, first, the UN Security Council, in what was described by U.S. officials as a direct assault on American sovereignty, tried to overrule Trump’s decision to comply with laws passed by Congress, as if it could. The U.S. government vetoed that move, which purported to mandate that Trump’s decision “must be rescinded in compliance with relevant resolutions of the Security Council.” All 14 other governments and dictators on the council went against America. “What we have witnessed here in the Security Council is an insult,” said U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley. “It won’t be forgotten,”

After failing in the Security Council, the UN General Assembly, where even mass-murdering psychopaths such as Kim Jong Un get a vote worth as much as the U.S. vote, held a rare “emergency session” to vote on the issue. The vote, orchestrated with help from UN General Assembly President (and unrepentant Communist Party member) Miroslav Lajcák, was an overwhelming rejection of the U.S. position. The resolution on “illegal Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of occupied Palestinian territory” purports to declare that any actions determining that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital are “null and voided.”

In reality, though, the UN measure is nonbinding and irrelevant except as political theater, since the UN has no legitimate power to tell the United States or the American people what to do. Still, in all, only nine governments of mostly small nations supported America, with 128 governments and tyrants voting against the U.S. decision. There were 35 abstentions on the resolution and more than 20 governments were absent for the vote.

Haley ridiculed the dictators club and vowed that the American embassy would be moved anyway. “No vote in the United Nations is going to make any difference on that,” she warned the motley collection of tyrants, gangsters, and murderous kleptocrats that make up most of the UN’s membership. “But this vote will make a difference in how Americans look at the UN and how we look at countries that disrespect us at the UN. And this vote will be remembered.”

Ahead of the vote, Haley blasted the “shame” of the UN undermining its credibility with the theatrics. And she wondered publicly why Israel would choose to remain a member of the disgraced global body despite being treated unfairly for so long. Finally, she issued a blistering attack on the UN and suggested that U.S. funding for it — over $10 billion per year, more than 180 other governments combined — was going to be reassessed.

“The United States is by far, the single largest contributor to the United Nations and its agencies,” Haley explained. “We do this in part to advance our values and our interests. When that happens, our participation in the UN produces great good for the world… We do this because it represents who we are. It is our American way.”

Of course, the idea that U.S. funding for the dictators club produces “good” for the world is ludicrous, and Haley should know that. From child-raping UN troops terrorizing the world, to outlandish UN attacks on the God-given rights of the American people, to the shameful effort to pervert the meaning of the term “human rights,” critics say the UN has been an unmistakable plague on most of humanity — and it is only because of U.S. funding and continued membership that this has been possible.

But if Haley is to be believed, that may soon be changing. “I will be honest with you, when we make generous contributions to the UN, we also have a legitimate expectation that our goodwill is recognized and respected,” she said. “When a nation is singled out for an attack in this organization, that nation is disrespected. What’s more, that nation is asked to pay for the privilege of being disrespected. In the case of the United States, we are asked to pay more than anyone else for that dubious privilege.”

In hinting at defunding the UN, Haley also mentioned the 800-pound gorilla in the room — the fact that much of the UN’s membership consists of savage tyrants and criminals. “Unlike some UN member countries [governments], the United States government is answerable to its people, as such we have an obligation to acknowledge when our political and financial capital is being poorly spent,” she said. “We have an obligation to demand more for our investment, and if our investment fails, we have an obligation to spend our resources in more productive ways.”

“The United States will remember this day in which it was singled out for attack in the General Assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation,” continued the U.S. ambassador. “We will remember it when we are called upon to once again make the world’s largest contribution to the United Nations. And we will remember it when so many countries come calling on us, as they so often do, to pay even more and to use our influence for their benefit.”

In addition to revisiting U.S. taxpayer funding for the UN, Trump indicated before the vote that the U.S. government would reconsider foreign aid to regimes that voted for the resolution as well. “They take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars, and then they vote against us,” Trump said. “Well, we’re watching those votes. Let them vote against us. We’ll save a lot. We don’t care.”

“This isn’t like it used to be where they could vote against you and then you pay them hundreds of millions of dollars and nobody knows what they’re doing,” Trump added. “People are tired of the United States — people that live here that are great citizens that love this country — they’re tired of this country being taken advantage of. And we’re not going to be taken advantage of any longer.”

Of course, beyond the problem of subsidizing the oppression of autocratic and oftentimes hostile regimes with U.S. tax money, there are many other reasons to stop foreign aid. For one, it is not authorized in the U.S. Constitution. Also, it is counterproductive, as it redistributes American wealth to subsidize bad policies and kleptocratic elites in foreign nations. And finally, the U.S. government is already $20 trillion in debt with an estimated $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities — it is in no position to hand out free money, sometimes to the very nations that lent it in the first place.

In Israel, elected leaders also ridiculed the UN. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for example, said his nation “rejects” the illegitimate UN resolution and was happy with the number of governments that did not vote for it. “Israel thanks President Trump for his unambiguous position in favor of Jerusalem and thanks the countries that voted together with Israel, together with the truth,” he said in a statement shortly after mocking the UN as a “house of lies.”

The mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, also said it was important that the leader of the free world recognized the history of Jerusalem. While acknowledging that not much would change — Israel will continue to uphold freedom of religion and freedom of movement in the Holy City — it is nevertheless meaningful that the United States recognizes Israel’s capital. “The show in the UN, besides being shameful, proves that it is becoming less and less relevant from our perspective,” he added.

More than a few U.S. lawmakers, including establishment-minded globalists, also ridiculed the UN after the vote. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), for example, highlighted the UN’s history of serving as a “forum for anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism” and called for a re-evaluation of the U.S. taxpayer’s role as single largest financier of the farce. Lawmakers from both parties have increasingly been calling for ending or at least scaling back U.S. funding to the UN, too.

Critics of the UN have long said that defunding the UN would be a great start. And in recent years, it has almost become a reality, with more than 175 members of the House voting to stop U.S. funds to the UN as recently as 2011. In December, following another anti-Israel vote by the UN orchestrated by the Obama administration, top lawmakers from both parties suggested the time to stop American funding for the UN was fast approaching.

Unfortunately, though, defunding the UN will not eliminate the threat to U.S. sovereignty posed by the dictators club and the globalist establishment behind it. The only sustainable solution to that existential threat is a full U.S. withdrawal. Trump has already announced that the U.S. government would be withdrawing from UNESCO, the UN “Paris Agreement,” and more. He has also expressed a desire to slash funding to the UN, which he said is not a friend to freedom or the United States.

But by passing the American Sovereignty Restoration Act (H.R. 193), Congress could neutralize the globalist threat completely. The legislation would evict the UN’s headquarters from U.S. soil and end American involvement in the dictators club. With enough pressure and understanding by the American people, the bill, currently sitting in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, can become a reality.

Now is the time to strike.

Photo: AP Images

Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is normally based in Europe. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU or on Facebook. He can be reached at [email protected].