The Obama administration’s decision to abstain on a UN Security Council resolution condemning Jewish settlements in the West Bank has been roundly condemned as a stab in the back against an American ally. The depths of opposition to the decision became manifest recently when the House of Representatives voted 342 to 80 to condemn the resolution and, by extension, Obama’s decision to allow it to pass.
The vote, which was symbolic, may be just the beginning of the other shoe dropping. Sentiment is growing in Congress to accept a proposal by Sen. Ted Cruz and others to cut off funding for the United Nations unless and until that body reverses its anti-Israel resolution. The move might well cripple the world body’s ability to operate since the United States provides 22 percent of its budget.
The Obama administration, in satisfying its pique against Israel and its leader Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, may well, quite by accident, driven a stake through the heart of a world body increasingly seen as corrupt and in the thrall of third world dictators and terrorists.
The UN regularly condemns the only liberal democracy in the Middle East while ignoring human rights abuses in Iran and Saudi Arabia and genocide taking place in Syria. American lawmakers have started to lose patience with this dichotomy and are prepared to do something about it.
The United Nations and its supporters will soon be faced with a quandary. They can reform the world body and make it into a force for good that it was promised to be when it was first formed in the wake of World War II. Or it can see it fade away in short order, to become either a shadow of itself, increasingly irrelevant on the world stage.
If the United Nations joins the League of Nations on the ash heap of history, one salutary outcome will take place.
Some prime real estate in New York City will open up for economic development. A new hotel/convention center will attract business to the city and not freeloading diplomats who do not pay their parking tickets.