| (WASHINGTON) – U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, commented today on developments at the United Nations after the Security Council passed a resolution illustrating a fundamentally biased perspective of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Other activity this week included UN Security Council meetings on the Middle East and Zimbabwe; reports of further problems with the UN Development Program (UNDP); and continued technical assistance by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to Syria, which is suspected of trying to develop a secret nuclear program. Ros-Lehtinen is the author of The United Nations Transparency, Accountability and Reform Act (H.R. 2712), which seeks to bring systemic reform to the UN. Statement of Ros-Lehtinen:
Even as Americans provided the United Nations more than $5 billion in 2008, the UN accomplished little on pressing security issues, leaving the world’s worst regimes and extremists free to oppress, murder, and proliferate with impunity, while suggesting that Israel needs to abdicate its security interests.
Just this week, as the Islamist militant group Hamas prepares to ramp up its attacks on innocent Israelis, the Security Council again failed to hold Palestinian extremists accountable for the murder of countless civilians and other actions that threaten regional peace and security. Yesterday’s Security Council resolution legitimizes the Palestinian Liberation Organization and calls on all nations and international organizations to increase their support for a Palestinian Authority that refuses to combat Islamist militants and anti-Semitic and anti-Israel incitement. This resolution was adopted on the heels of a UN General Assembly session last week in which the UNGA President sought to suppress Israel’s right to speak.
In this resolution, the Council also urges 'peaceful coexistence between all States in the region’- a nod to Syria which hosts the leaders of such violent Islamist groups as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Meanwhile, it ignores last month’s IAEA report detailing evidence that Syria may have been building a secret nuclear reactor. Making matters worse, the UN nuclear watchdog continues to provide technical nuclear assistance to the Syrian regime. It took more than 5 years for the IAEA in 2007 to merely reduce technical assistance to Iran’s nuclear program. Will this UN agency enable the nuclear ambitions of yet another pariah state?
The Council’s anemic response to the Mugabe regime’s atrocities in Zimbabwe, and to the Iranian regime’s aggressive pursuit of a nuclear capability reinforces its growing irrelevance.
Meanwhile, reports have surfaced that the UNDP may have allowed aid money to be diverted to the ruling regime in Zimbabwe. This is eerily reminiscent of UNDP’s failures in Burma and North Korea which also benefited those dictatorships.
In the next Congress, my priority will be to ensure our taxpayer dollars advance our nation’s interests and fund only accountable, transparent, and effective agencies and programs. As it stands now, the UN is not a good investment.
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