Woodmere resident forces McCarthy hand on U.S. backed anti-Israel UN funding

A Woodmere resident will be delivering a petition he initiated to the Garden City office of U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy on January 5 in a bid to force McCarthy to take a stand on withholding United States support of anti-Israel activity at the United Nations.

Dr. Martin Elsant began collecting signatures electronically in support of a bill sponsored in August by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), entitled the United Nations Transparency, Accountability, and Reform Act (H.R. 2829). The goal is to change the way the United States pays the U.N.

“The U.S. currently gives one chunk of money to the U.N. once a year and says, ‘See you next year,’” Elsant explained. The goal, he added, is to “divide up the money. If part of the U.N. starts bashing Israel, the U.S. can withhold money to that part. There is no reason to fund it, and this legislation facilitates the U.S. to do that. If there is any anti-Israel activity, the money will be withdrawn. Any elevation of the Palestinian mission to the U.N., the funding ends.”

He delineated the challenge to McCarthy: “Does she want the U.S. to fund anti-Israel activity in the U.N.? Why won’t she be on board with this legislation?”

“We need a U.N. which will advance the noble goals for which it was founded,” Ros-Lehtinen said. She seeks to target funding for the most worthy U.N. causes and works rather than allowing U.S. money to support efforts that are opposed to American values, like the anti-Israel Durban Conference or the Goldstone Report. The legislation would also curtail financial support for any part of the U.N. that raises the status of the Palestinian mission to the U.N.

“The Palestinian leadership’s current scheme to attain recognition of a Palestinian state at the U.N. without even recognizing Israel’s right to exist has been tried before, and it was stopped only when the U.S. made clear that it wouldn’t fund a U.N. entity that went along with it,” noted Ros-Lehtinen. “My bill similarly seeks to stop this dangerous scheme in its tracks.”

There are currently 141 cosponsors of the bill, Elsant noted, and so far they are all Republican. His goal is to persuade McCarthy, a Democrat, to be the 142nd.