McCAUGHEY: The time has come to abolish the United Nations

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The United Nations is useless.

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The United States pours more than $12 billion in taxpayer money down the United Nations rat hole every year, missing a better opportunity.

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The dream behind the founding of the United Nations, to create an international forum for peaceful cooperation and war prevention, does not have to be abandoned.

America should lead democratic nations to create a new forum and destroy the UN. These two letters now stand for “Useless Nations,” or worse, “Unethical Nations.”

The United Nations gives legitimacy to ruthless, despotic regimes and even a terrorist organization, Hamas.

The current crisis in Gaza shows the true face of the UN. For years, the United Nations refused to call Hamas what it is – a terrorist organization like ISIS or al-Qaeda. In 2018, then-UN Ambassador Nikki Haley sounded the alarm about Hamas’ plans to attack Israeli communities, even claiming to have evidence of maps and raid plans. Haley pushed for terrorist designation, but the UN refused to act.

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Last week, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the Hamas terrorist attack. But Guterres has also aggressively criticized Israel’s impending invasion of Gaza to oust Hamas.

That’s no surprise. The United Nations has long been biased against Israel and the prisoners of the world’s most despotic regimes.

What is surprising is how President Joe Biden kowtows to the United Nations as if he deserves respect. In 2021, shortly after entering the White House, Biden told the UN General Assembly that the US was “back at the table”, pursuing “relentless diplomacy” and pursuing globalist goals.

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And he came with money. The United States provides a fifth of the international organization’s budget, making it the largest contributor. Biden restored funding to U.N. agencies that had been cut under President Donald Trump, including more than $600 million a year for the pro-Palestinian U.N. relief agency.

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UNRWA supports the destruction of Israel. Haley protested that UNRWA was “using American money to fuel Palestinian hatred of the Jewish state.” UNRWA pays for printed school supplies that teach Palestinian children to kill Jews. Maps for Palestinian children don’t even show Israel as a country.

This is apparently not a problem for the Biden administration.

In its eagerness to “get back to the table,” Team Biden is scapegoating the United States.

Start with COVID. The United Nations health agency, the World Health Organization, allowed China to carry out the largest cover-up in history. Trump suspended WHO funding and called for “independence from China.” Biden restored the money on the first day of his presidency.

For nearly four years, as seven million people died worldwide, the UN watched as China blocked independent researchers from investigating the origins of the virus, which was almost certainly a leak from the Wuhan lab.

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When it comes to climate change, the United Nations is fleecing wealthy Western countries while tolerating ever-increasing pollution from China. In March, the United Nations announced that wealthier nations – i.e. the US – would have to shell out three to six times their current spending on global climate action. It’s a robbery.

On human rights, Biden promised in 2021 that the U.S. would rejoin the 47-member United Nations Human Rights Council. That’s a certain aspiration to be in the company of hardened offenders like Cuba and China.

Meanwhile, the UN’s center of power – the Security Council – is a house of criminals where both Russia and China have veto powers. Russia bombs Ukrainian hospitals and kidnaps children with impunity. No wonder Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the UN Security Council as useless. This is the same council that is considering a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Haley, now a presidential candidate, has long protested anti-Israel bias and corruption at the United Nations. Her voice is morally clear. She tweeted: “Hamas is evil and must be eradicated. We must stand with Israel – not only when it is hit, but also when it strikes back.”

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Since the Holocaust, the world has sworn: “Never again.” The United Nations has failed to live up to that promise.

The world needs a new international organization dominated by democratic leaders rather than thugs and despots. Biden is incompetent, but our next president should be able to do it.

Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York

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