Republicans introduce bill to defund UN until anti-Israel resolution repealed

Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsay Graham are attempting to force the UN to repeal an anti-Israel UN Security Council resolution by cutting off US funding to the organization until the resolution is repealed. 

Republican Senators Ted Cruz (Texas) and Lindsay Graham (South Carolina) have introduced legislation to withdraw US funding to the United Nations until it repeals the December 23 UN Security Council Resolution that condemned all Israeli presence in territories won by Israel from Jordan during the Six-Day War in 1967.

“We need to act to defend, not only our friend and ally, the nation of Israel, but also US interests,” said Cruz on Thursday to MSNBC’s Morning Joe program. “So Lindsay and I today are joining in filing legislation that would end all US taxpayer funding for the UN unless and until they reverse this resolution.”

“We can give speeches, we can pass resolutions and the UN is gonna ignore what we have to say, but if you cut off their money, that gets their attention,” Cruz added.

Senator Graham also weighed in on the significance of the legislation.

“I’m a big internationalist, but we’re gonna stop the money until we get this fixed,” Graham said to Morning Joe while standing next to Cruz.  “I think most Americans believe the United Nations has become more anti-Semitic, more anti-Israeli.”

“I don’t think it’s a good investment for the American taxpayer to give money to an organization that condemns the only democracy in the Mideast, takes the settlement issue and says ‘that’s the most important and only issue in terms of an impediment to peace,'” he added.

Both Senators lambasted the Obama Administration for taking a role in letting the resolution pass in the UN Security Council.

“This was John Kerry and Barack Obama taking a slap at Israel and we’re gonna push back,” Graham stressed.

“The last month what we’ve seen Barack Obama do to Israel I think has been shameful,” Cruz contended. “On the way out, he has struck repeatedly at Israel and done real damage. At the UN, the resolution that the Obama Administration abstained from, there are reports they actually orchestrated, was a profoundly anti-Israel resolution.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had told his Cabinet in December that Israel had information verifying that the Obama Administration took a direct role in framing the UN Security Council resolution and ensuring its passage. An Egyptian news site also made a similar claim, pointing to a reported meeting between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Palestinian Authority officials that concentrated on wording the resolution.

Ted Cruz is optimistic that the legislation will be passed without any foreseeable roadblocks.

“I think we’ve got real prospects of seeing this thing move through Congress and actually turning this thing around,” he said.

Shortly after the passing of the UN Security Council resolution, former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee  called upon US President-elect Donald Trump to defund the UN and “jackhammer the whole United Nations off into the East River.”

By: Jonathan Benedek, World Israel News

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