Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee plans to introduce legislation to withdraw all U.S. funding to the United Nations after the body’s General Assembly failed to pass a resolution to condemn Hamas for the Oct. 7 massacre of Israeli civilians.
Last week, the UN passed a resolution calling for an "immediate, durable and sustainable humanitarian truce" between Israel and Hamas. Only 14 countries including the U.S. opposed the resolution.
The nonbinding resolution called for the "immediate and unconditional release" of all of the captives, but did not mention Hamas by name. The resolution also demanded that supplies be allowed into Gaza.
The United States and Canada attempted to amend the resolution to insert language that condemns Hamas by name and demand an immediate release of hostages held by terrorists in Gaza but failed to win the two-thirds majority required to pass the General Assembly.
In response, Lee posted on social media: "It's officially time to withdraw all U.S. funding for the UN. The UN does a lot of bad things. And if it can't even do a good thing as simple as condemning war crimes, it's over between us."
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, U.S. taxpayer funds pay for one-fifth ($12.5 billion) of the UN's budget.
"I want to be clear about his: NOT. ONE. MORE. DOLLAR. NOT. ONE. MORE. CENT,” Lee said, adding that he's "begun the process of drafting legislation" to do so.
A Morning Consult poll in 2022 revealed that only 36 percent of Republicans view the UN favorably, while 39 percent view it unfavorably, compared to 64 percent of Democrats who view the UN favorably and a mere 12 percent who view it unfavorably.
Mast: I think when we look at this, as a whole, I would encourage the other side to not so lightly throw around the idea of innocent Palestinian civilians. I don't think we would so lightly throw around the term innocent Nazi civilians pic.twitter.com/OqDpJHZiHV
— Acyn (@Acyn) November 1, 2023
Oh you like Hamas?
Siding with Hamas isn’t easy when you know what they actually stand for. Well done: FactsForPeace on IG pic.twitter.com/ksLmr2dDeE — Yaakov Langer (@jacklanger) November 2, 2023
