The UNRWA is one of the worst international organizations in the world. 

Funded by Western governments, it subsidizes terrorist organizations, delivers supplies to them, employs many terrorists, trains them in schools, and hides tunnels for Hamas on its properties. 

Trump defunded them; Biden restored their funding when he came into office. 

Since 10/7/2023, there has been an undeclared war between the UNRWA and Israel in the political sphere. Israel exposes UNRWA corruption, and the UNRWA defends its practices, attacks Israel using mostly baseless accusations and Hamas propaganda, and egging on antisemites around the world to pressure Israel to give up its war against Hamas. 

The Government of Israel is running a global disinformation campaign targeting UNRWA, the largest humanitarian provider for people in war-torn #Gaza.

The act of Israel, a UN member state, to label UNRWA, a UN agency, as a terror organisation may amount to hate speech.

Using… pic.twitter.com/mjqK6MFVcR

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) December 4, 2024

The UNRWA has many backers around the world, unfortunately including the Biden administration, and now it is arguing that Israel should be prevented from defending itself in the public sphere as well as its physical territory. 

No doubt it will find many backers who will jump at the chance of shutting those irritating Jews up, but any victory in the short term will unlikely survive the return of Donald Trump to the White House. 

The United States provides 30% of the funding for the UNRWA, and with the return of Trump that percentage may plummet to 0%. The political might of the United Nations depends entirely on the sufferance of the United States and our willingness to keep wasting nearly $20 billion a year to keep this corrupt and ridiculous organization going. That is about 1/3 of the UN's budget. 

The only argument I can see for US participation is the UN is that it is a convenient place to meet up with our adversaries without having to secretly meet with them abroad. We can talk with and deliver messages to any country on Earth in one convenient spot on US soil. Perhaps that is valuable, although not $18 billion in value. It also serves our interests to be the host country, reminding everybody of our wealth and power. 

Again, probably not worth $18 billion and all the trouble the UN causes. 

Short of exiting the UN entirely, the US should downsize our contributions and starve it of funds. It may be useful to have a common place for diplomats to meet, but almost everything the UN does as an organization is counterproductive. Even its theoretically useful functions such as coordinating responses to world crises such as pandemics, turn out to be a disaster. Who trusts the World Health Organization, and why would anybody?

The UN still exists because of inertia and because the transnational elite finds it useful. It's not clear that it serves our interests, though, and the last thing we need is to empower it to censor speech in order to protect itself. 

Elise Stefanik is a fine choice for the UN ambassador, and it will be interesting to watch her take on the corruptocrats. But it would be more interesting to see her and Trump take on the entire organization and tell it to shape up or ship out to North Korea, China, or Belgium, where totalitarian impulses are more welcome.