GOP Senators Set to Punish the Palestinians and the UN
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Republican U.S. senators introduced the first efforts to penalize the Palestinians and the United Nations should the body affirm enhanced Palestinian status.
The amendment language, first reported on the Americans for Peace Now website, was introduced by Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wy.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.).
“The first shot has been fired in the much-anticipated Congressional battle to punish the Palestinians for seeking to upgrade their status at the UN – and to also punish any UN agencies and any countries that support them,” writes APN blogger Lara Friedman.
Language proposed this week as an amendment to S. 3254, the National Defense Authorization Act would punish both the PA and the UN for a unilateral recognition of a Palestinian “observer state.”
The PLO is set to submit its bid for non-member observer state status today, Thursday.
Friedman reports that the GOP amendment seeks to compel the president to cut U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority by 50% if the PA “seeks at any time after November 25, 2012, at the United Nations General Assembly or any other United Nations entity status different than the status it held on November 25, 2012″ – with the cuts continuing “until permanent status issues between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are fully resolved.”
Next, the same amendment will compel the President to cut by 50% U.S. “appropriated contributions to any United Nations entity” that upgrades the Palestinians’ status after November 25, 2012, and those cuts as well will continue “until permanent status issues between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are fully resolved.”
Finally, to complete the package, the amendment compels the president to cut by 20% U.S. assistance to any country that after November 25, 2012 votes to grant the Palestinians full membership in the UN, or votes to grant them non-member state status, or votes to otherwise “alter” the status of the Palestinians at the UN “that interferes with the resolution of permanent status issues between Israel and the Palestinian Authority,” and those cuts will continue until the country in question “votes at the United Nations to revert the status of the Palestinian mission back to the status it held on November 25, 2012.”
According to Friedman, the amendment permits the President to waive this one category of cuts (but not the others) for national security reasons.
Could be a meaningful step towards balancing the budget…
According to JTA, a separate amendment to the same bill introduced by Barrasso, Lee, Inhofe and Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), James Risch (R-Idaho), Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) would cut off all funding should the Palestinians succeed in their bid to change the PLO’s status.
U.S. law institutes total cuts to Palestinians and the United Nations in the case of full Palestinian U.N. membership, but so far has had no provisions to penalize an upgrade to observer status.
As of Thursday morning, the PLO is still a non-member observer entity, but this will most likely be changed later in the day.
JTA content was used in this report.
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21 Responses to “GOP Senators Set to Punish the Palestinians and the UN”
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Our president can apparently do whatever he wants when it comes to foreign policy. Already he’s violated limits on money sent to Arabs allegedly running the Territories…
Cut their aid by 50%, SERIOUSLY!!! Cut it all!! The muslims are trying to circumvent agreements that they signed. Standard muslim
tactics;LIE,CHEAT,STEAL if it will get them what they want and advance islam.
The problem is that if the US reduces its UN contribution below a certain level it automatically loses its UN voting rights. That will not do Israel any good at all.
This is COMPLETE B.S.
Whose propaganda office are you working for?…
The United States, as a PERMANENT MEMBER OF THE U.N.S.C., CANNOT be excluded from voting at the U.N. and NO STATE can ever become a member if the U.S. vetoes it.
The U.N. DOESN'T EXIST AD CANNOT EVEN FUNCTION WITHOUT THE U.S.A. since the U.S.A. CONTRIBUTES ALSO 25% of UN budget and the building in which they meet!
The U.S. is one of five charter members of the U.N and as such has veto powers over any resolution. The U.S. has been in arrears of U.N. payments for going on 30 years now, and Congress has withheld payment and negotiated a reduction in payment during the last decade and a half. They are not the only country to be in arrears during this time. France and Russia would certainly fit this category. However, there is the remote possibility that the U.S. could losing voting rights in the General Assembly, but not on the Security Council, since it is a permanent member. The U.S.S.R. now Russia, has routinely refused to pay for assessments not approved by the Security Council.
Perhaps the time has come to completely defund the UN and evict them?
no perhaps about it…. IT"S TIME!!!!
The UN must go!!!The United Nimcompoops need to be shut down now!!!!
UN is now The Arab Liga.
ABSLUTLLY!!!!!!!!!!!
AND THE CNN AND THE BBC AND EUROPE…..
Para sancionar también tendríais que hacerlo con laTVElatarde/24horas en España, totalmente partidista hacia la la "causa" palestina.La entrevista a Federico Mayor Zaragoza es una vergonzosa.
These senators are just being distracting. It is not the Palestinian Authority's funding that should be questioned, but Hamas. Punishing the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations is like beating up a by stander, because a thief stolen your purse.
THERE IS NO DEFERENT !WAKE UP! HAMAS AND PATACH ARE SAME. ONE ORGANIZTION DOING IT ON DIRECT WAY,THE OTHER ON SILENCE WAY, BOATH WANT TO DESTROY ISRAEL!!!!!
The only problem with this amendment is that it only cuts 50% and 20% respectively, when it should be cutting support by AT LEAST 100%.
Exactly!
It would certainly appear that majority of the U.N. membership is the lapdog of the Arab League, but that is nothing new. It has been true and growing since at least the Carter Administration. As a permanent member of the Security Council, the U.S. has made the rest like it or lump on numerous past occasions, as had China and Russia. Losing their vote in the General Assembly seems a remote possibility at best, as they remain a major funder of the entire operation even though the contribution has now been reduced to 22 or 23%. They have already indicated that they will veto this vote. Congress refusal to pay is nothing new either, since they have repeatedly done this since 1985, and it appears this has been an across the aisle participation.
They need to cut all funding for both.
My Goodness…This almost makes me want to be a Republican!
By their actions…..you now see that they are your true friends. This UN vote should have never occurred. Obama could have prevented it by working behind the scenes with effective diplomacy. He did not. Jim Baker did many years ago when an almost identical situation arose.
I'M A REPUBLICAN,TRY IT YOU MAY LIKE IT,IF YOU VOTED FOR OBAMA,YOU PUT A KNIFE IN ISRAEL'S BACK
STOP TO GIVE MONEY TO THE PALASTINIANS THEY USE IS FOR TERORR, THE TERROR COMES FROM EGYPY AND IRAN , NO BY THE UN WE SEE THAT THIS ORGANIZTION IS DIESASTER TO OUR SECURITY WHEN THOSE ARABS LEADERS GOING MORE AND MORE TO THE RADICAL ISLAM. WE DOn't TRUST ANY PEACE WITH THEM I WILL BE WAR AGAIN BEACAUSE OF THAT RESOLUTION. ITS BAD ALLSO BEACAUSE OF OBAMA POLICY!