At one of the White House Christmas parties, President Trump asked me to say a few words before I closed the evening with a prayer. I thanked the President for many things, including “having the guts to do what no other president has done in officially recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.” “ Mr. President,” I said, “you are on the right side of history and the right side of God.”
That the United Nations is on the wrong side of history and would condemn President Trump’s declaration about Jerusalem was completely expected . . . and totally illogical. Historically, Jerusalem has been the recognized capital of Israel since 1000 BC. From a geopolitical perspective, the United Nations recognizes the right of every other nation to designate its own capital. Why not Israel?
The only logical explanation for the UN’s condemnation of U.S. policy about Israel is that the United Nations is overwhelmingly anti-Semitic. President Trump is right to oppose the financial excess, corruption, and growing anti-Semitism in the United Nations by cutting U.S. contributions $285 million — nearly 25 percent — in 2018.
It is clear that the organization — which receives nearly a quarter of its budget from the United States alone (far more than any other country) — is increasingly a safe place for pure anti-Semitism to grow. Its opposition to Israel has gone far beyond political opposition; it is a racist organization.
There is no end to the well-documented absurdities of the United Nations. It’s unthinkable that Turkey is now on the executive board of The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which is responsible for promoting and protecting cultural sites around the world. This summer alone Turkey seized 50 ancient Christian churches and properties, not to mention the countless schools and universities affected by Erdogan’s vicious crackdown on human rights, schools and cultural institutions.
Speaking of human rights, the United Nations’ Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) now includes the nations of Venezuela, Cuba, and the Philippines—all nations that are notorious for their violations of human rights. They also currently placed Syria, a virtual protectorate of Iran, on a committee focused on “decolonization,” and they once named Zimbabwe’s brutal former dictator, Robert Mugabe, a “goodwill ambassador” for the World Health Organization (WHO). These facts sound more like farce than fact—but the examples just go on and on; it would take pages and pages even to summarize them.
So, it should not surprise us that, according to UN Watch, the State of Israel has been subject to 46 condemnations from UNESCO as opposed to Syria’s single condemnation and no condemnations for North Korea, Iran or Sudan. The UN human rights council from 2006 to 2017 condemned Israel on 68 occasions, but only issued another 67 condemnations over the entire ten years for all the other nations of the world, combined. The UN General Assembly criticized individual nations 97 times from 2012 to 2015 of which 83 were against Israel. In 2017 alone the UN voted against Israel 21 times, and only voted to condemn Iran, Russia, North Korea, Myanmar and Syria, once.
The only logical conclusion is the United Nations has become the leading sponsor of anti-Semitic rhetoric and action in the entire world. President Trump is right to condemn this body, and the United States Congress needs to follow the president’s courageous example.
Israel is also surrounded by enemies who not only believe Israel does not have a right to their land, they don’t believe Israel has the right even to exist. The United States should not be convening those enemies to spew their anti-Semitism in New York City which has the largest Jewish population in the United States.
I thank God that President Trump — unlike any other U.S. president — is insisting that the United Nations no longer act as the international facilitator of such blatant anti-Semitism. President Trump's willingness to financially drain this expanding cesspool of racism may be his most consequential global decision.
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Dr. Robert Jeffress is pastor of the 13,000-member First Baptist Church in Dallas and serves as an evangelical advisor to President Donald j. Trump. He is a best-selling author of 24 books and a nationally and internationally syndicated TV and radio host. His program, Pathway to Victory, airs daily nationwide on more than 900 radio stations and is broadcast live to 195 countries. His latest book is, A Place Called Heaven: 10 Surprising Truths About Your Eternal Home, available at bookstores everywhere.