The U.S. will face a difficult decision if the Palestinians should succeed in establishing a workaround toward official recognition, which could trigger America pulling all funding from the U.N. in protest, according to experts.<\/p>\n
\u2018If the draft resolution as it currently stands is adopted, U.S. law demands that the U.S. withhold all funds from the U.N.,\u2019 Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro University Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, told Fox News Digital. \u2018The question is: Where is Congress? It needs to make it very clear, very publicly, that American law will be upheld and take immediate steps to do so.\u2019<\/p>\n
The U.S. in 1990 passed Public Law 101-246, which focused on authorizing appropriations for fiscal 1990 and 1991 for the Department of State. Section 414 of the bill highlighted concerns over the inclusion of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the United Nations and specialized agencies.<\/p>\n
The section states, \u2018No funds authorized to be appropriated from this act or any other Act shall be available for the United Nations or any specialized agency thereof which accords the Palestine Liberation Organization the same standing as member states.\u2019<\/p>\n
The broad language \u2013 \u2018any other Act\u2019 \u2013 has created some confusion about what the U.S. would need to do if the PLO, a group internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinian people, were to obtain the privileges and powers of a full and recognized U.N. member.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018It is no surprise that Biden officials are not hitting the airwaves clearly announcing that a General Assembly end run around the U.N. charter, purporting to grant the so-called state of Palestine the trappings of full-member state status, is not only contrary to the spirit and intent of the U.N.\u2019s own charter but is contrary to American law,\u2019 Bayefsky said.<\/p>\n
\u2018A majority of U.N. member states are not free democracies,\u2019 she said. \u2018The Islamic and Arab blocs of states, a large percentage of which continue to dispute even Israel\u2019s right to exist, wield enormous power, and despite American isolation in U.N. circles on issue after issue of importance to the United States, including the constant aggression and antisemitism meted out to Israel, American citizens still bankroll the place and host the institution in its midst.\u2019<\/p>\n
The U.S. likely did not think it would have to wrangle with this problem, especially as American representatives at the U.N. continue to veto measures to recognize the Palestinians as a full member of the organization.<\/p>\n
However, a new draft resolution would seek what some have called a \u2018workaround\u2019 that would seek the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to approve powers to vote and veto without official recognition as a full member of the organization.<\/p>\n
\u2018They\u2019re still carelessly killing Americans and killing Israelis through terrorism and then giving those who do it if they\u2019re arrested, if they don\u2019t die to a suicide bomb, payments and a guaranteed position in the PLA when they get out of prison,\u2019 Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., told Fox News Digital. \u2018That\u2019s [one] of the ugliest, most anti-democracy and anti-human rights policies I\u2019ve ever heard of.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Pay-to-slay is exactly what happened with Hamas just recently; obviously it\u2019s been an ongoing problem with Oct. 7, [and] they\u2019re part of the Palestinian effort,\u2019 Smith said, calling the approach an \u2018impermissible act\u2019 and asking \u2018how do you reward\u2019 an organization like Hamas that \u2018calls for the evisceration of Israel.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018If you\u2019re going to play some game at the United Nations that somehow this isn\u2019t a full-blown membership, [then] this shows a deceptive approach to dealing with member states,\u2019 Smith added. \u2018How dare they even think of doing this? It may pass in the General Assembly \u2013 they need two thirds, as we all know \u2013 but they also need the Security Council to do it as well, and thankfully, the United States will veto that.\u2019<\/p>\n
A U.S. State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the U.S. is \u2018aware of the draft resolution and reiterate[s] our concerns with any effort to extend certain benefits to entities when there are unresolved questions as to whether the Palestinians currently meet the criteria under the U.N. charter.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018The United States is committed to intensifying its engagement \u2013 with the Palestinians and the rest of the region \u2013 not only to address the current crisis in Gaza but to advance a political settlement that will create a path to Palestinian statehood and membership in the United Nations,\u2019 the spokesperson added, noting \u2018direct negotiations\u2019 as the path toward statehood.<\/p>\n
Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Gilad Erdan said the resolution provides de facto status and rights of a state and that he fully expects the U.S. to \u2018completely stop funding the U.N. and its institutions, in accordance with American law\u2019 should the resolution pass, he said in a recorded video statement.<\/p>\n
Then-President Obama, for example, cut funding to UNESCO (U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 2011 after the organization granted full membership to the Palestinians, which crippled the agency as the U.S. accounted for 22% of the budget. UNESCO froze job hires and cut programs after losing U.S. funding, according to Reuters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018We are coping in very difficult circumstances,\u2019 UNESCO\u2019s Irina Bokova told reporters at the time. \u2018We\u2019re fundraising this year, but it\u2019s not sustainable on a long-term basis. We\u2019re not closing UNESCO, but member states will have to rethink the way forward. UNESCO will be crippled.\u2019<\/p>\n
The U.S. fully left the organization in 2017 as part of concerns over perceived anti-Israel bias from the group, with Israel following out the door in 2018. The U.S. rejoined UNESCO in July 2023 over concerns that China had gained an outsized level of influence in the group during America\u2019s absence.<\/p>\n
But that absence provided a glimpse of the impact the U.S. could have if it cut its broader funding to the United Nations. Brett Schaefer, the senior research fellow in international regulatory affairs at the Heritage Foundation, noted the U.S. currently accounts for around a quarter of all funding to the U.N. regular budget and the peacekeeping budget.<\/p>\n
\u2018In one fell swoop, one rash decision, they could essentially prohibit the U.S. from providing a fifth of the U.N.\u2019s funding,\u2019 Schaefer told Fox News Digital. But he noted that the way the resolution\u2019s adoption plays out could provide the U.S. some wiggle room.<\/p>\n
\u2018If the Palestinians don\u2019t join other organizations, technically, that funding could continue to the special interest groups,\u2019 he said. \u2018However, every single one of those specialized agencies basically grants membership opportunities to any other member of the United Nations.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018They have been successful in getting into several U.N. special organizations, especially agencies including UNESCO,\u2019 Schaefer added. \u2018So, if they have the votes to get into the U.N. in this manner, what\u2019s to stop them from doing and following a similar path with specialized agencies?\u2019<\/p>\n
Schaefer laid out the ongoing issues that admitting the Palestinians into the United Nations would pose, such as the fact that Hamas remains the official ruling party of the Gaza Strip, which would mean admitting a terrorist organization into the United Nations with the power and benefits of a member state.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018There is no question that Palestinians do not meet that criteria,\u2019 Schaefer insisted. Referring to Hamas, he noted that \u2018their founding documents call for the destruction of Israel. They have sponsored terrorist acts for decades.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Even the Palestinian Authority, which the United States has been negotiating with \u2026 celebrated the terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, so this is not a situation where there is a peace-loving state,\u2019 he added.<\/p>\n
More importantly, however, Schaefer said China has become the second-largest funding source for the United Nations, which would revive U.S. concerns over what influence Beijing could command in the absence of the U.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to Schaefer, China tripled its contributions over the past decade to account for around 15% of the regular budget. Other wealthy nations, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, contribute about 1% to 2% of the U.N. general budget, respectively.<\/p>\n
But the impact of America cutting its funds from the U.N. would still prove crippling to the organization, according to Schaefer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Your entire operations would come to a halt right away,\u2019 he said. \u2018It doesn\u2019t mean you couldn\u2019t do your job, but it would have a massive impact on your daily operations\u2019 and that the bulk of the U.N. general budget goes toward staff salaries and benefits, utilities and maintenance.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n\n
The U.S. will face a difficult decision if the Palestinians should succeed in establishing a workaround toward official recognition, which could trigger America pulling all funding from the U.N. in protest, according to experts. \u2018If the draft resolution as it currently stands is adopted, U.S. law demands that the U.S. withhold all funds from the <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":18900,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}