Continuing to focus on Israel during his first month in his second term in the U.S. Senate, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., teamed up with U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., to bring out a bill fighting anti-Semitism and opposition to Israel at the United Nations.
Rubio and Cotton introduced the “Countering Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israel Activities Act” on Wednesday. The proposal withholds “U.S. funding for the United Nations (U.N.) and affiliated agencies until the president certifies that no U.N. agency or affiliated agency grants any official status, accreditation, or recognition to any organization which promotes or condones anti-Semitism, or includes any such organization as a subsidiary or member.”
As he brought out the bill, Rubio pointed to a UN Security Council resolution passed last month which called Israeli settlement of disputed territory “illegal.” The Obama administration refused to veto the measure, choosing to abstain. Rubio, who sits on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, said that resolution was one of the reasons he was bringing out his bill.
“As I said when the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 2334 with the United States abstaining, if the U.N. wants to continue to attack Israel and promote anti-Semitism, I will work to see that it does so without U.S. taxpayer funding,” Rubio said on Wednesday. “It’s time for the United Nations to be held accountable for targeting and singling out Israel while countries that actually threaten international peace and security—like Russia and China—go unchallenged.”
"This bill simply puts into law what should be common sense: Americans’ tax dollars should not fund anti-Semitic activities or nefarious efforts to undermine the legitimacy of Israel,” said Cotton. “For too long, the world's worst actors have used the United Nations as a forum to point an accusatory finger at Israel and deflect from their own failings. That will stop only when America leads, stands on principle, and uses its considerable leverage to force true reform at the United Nations."
The bill also ensures the U.S. does not fund the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) “until the secretary of state certifies that the UNHRC does not include a permanent item related to the state of Israel or the Palestinian territories" and stops funding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency “until the secretary of state certifies that no official, employee, consultant, contractor, subcontractor, representative, or affiliate of UNRWA is a member of Hamas or any U.S.-designated terrorist group." The bill also ensures reports are provided on U.S. funding to countries implementing the UN resolution, UN voting habits and on anti-Semitism and anti-Israel actions at the UN.
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