Leading members of Congress have recently sent letters and introduced bills threatening to cut UN funding if the General Assembly votes to support a possible Palestinian move to reject Israel’s credentials to participate in that body.
Surprisingly, neither the letters nor the bills mention that U.S. law already requires the U.S. to slash UN funding if Israel’s participation is halted. The best way to deter the General Assembly from taking such an outrageous step is to make it clear that U.S. defunding is not a mere possibility, dependent on the bills passing, but a certainty.
Buried deep in the statutory notes section of the U.S. code is a legally binding provision, passed in 1983, which specifies that “[i]f Israel is illegally expelled, suspended, denied its credentials, or in any other manner denied its right to participate in any principal or subsidiary organ or in any specialized, technical, or other agency of the United Nations, the United States shall suspend its participation in any such organ or agency until the illegal action is reversed.” The provision adds that “[t]he United States shall reduce its annual assessed contribution to the United Nations or such specialized agency by 8.34 percent for each month in which United States participation is suspended pursuant to this section.”
This existing law’s consequences are comparable to those contained in the bills introduced, with dozens of co-sponsors, in the House on Aug. 16 and in the Senate on Nov. 13. The existing law is more robust in that it would require the U.S. to suspend its participation in (and not merely defund) the offending UN organ or agency, and slightly less robust in that it would reduce the U.S. contribution by 8.34 percent per month rather than immediately to zero.
Neither the existing law nor the bills provide the president with the ability to waive the specified consequences. Most importantly, the existing law is already in place, in time to deter the General Assembly from acting in December.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly urged the UN to suspend or expel Israel. But the UN Charter specifies that a UN member state may be suspended or expelled only “upon the recommendation of the Security Council.” The Council, in which the U.S. possesses a veto, has not made and will make no such recommendation.
So the Palestinians and their allies have been planning an end run, in which they would gin up a General Assembly vote blocking Israel’s participation by rejecting its credentials. This is the international diplomatic equivalent of a gate attendant dishonestly claiming a valid passport is false.
A similar maneuver was controversially used in 1974 to successfully prevent South Africa from participating in the General Assembly. Its use against Israel would nevertheless be illegal. As the UN’s own Legal Counsel has explained, “participation in meetings of the General Assembly is quite clearly one of the important rights and privileges of membership” and “[s]uspension of this right through the rejection of credentials would … be contrary to the Charter.”
Israel’s human rights record is far superior to that of many other UN member states, let alone that of apartheid South Africa. But the pro-Palestinian majority of UN member states has reflexively passed multiple resolutions unfairly applying a double standard to Israel. The U.S. veto in the UN Security Council can protect Israel from being formally suspended or expelled from the UN, but it is likely unable to prevent the General Assembly from illegally rejecting Israel’s credentials to participate in that body.
The most important U.S. power in these circumstances is money. The U.S. is the largest donor to the UN, with its contributions reportedly accounting for one-third of the organization’s total budget. Specifically, the U.S. contributes 22 percent ($1.54 billion in 2024) of the UN’s core administrative budget, which includes the expenses of the General Assembly. The U.S. also contributes 25 percent of UN peacekeeping funds ($1.37 billion in 2024), and some $10.4 billion per year in voluntary contributions to various UN-related humanitarian relief agencies.
President-elect Donald Trump, who withdrew the U.S. from some UN agencies and cut funding for others during his first term, is already critical of the UN. If any UN body, including the General Assembly, rejects Israel’s credentials or otherwise curtails Israel’s participation, U.S. defunding is a certainty. Such a cutoff is required by the existing U.S. law, which the Trump team will be highly motivated to enforce.
Orde F. Kittrie is Senior Fellow of Foundation for Defense of Democracies and law professor for Arizona State University.
