Prof. Anne Bayefsky: 'U.S.-U.N. relations are all over the map'

"Professor Anne Bayefsky, President of Human Rights Voices and Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, spoke with Arutz Sheva - Israel National News about the Israeli Foreign Ministry's announcement that Israel would immediately suspend contacts with multiple UN agencies and international organizations.

She noted that ‘Israel’s move follows the United States, since, of course, absent the U.S. move, Israel’s sovereign identity and foreign policy standing on its own two feet are whisked away like an annoying insect by the United Nations.’

‘So the real question is, what to make of the U.S. move?’ she stated. ‘Unfortunately, US-UN relations are inconsistent, or less politely, all over the map. Try putting it altogether from the last two weeks alone.’

Prof. Bayefsky listed examples of America's mixed signals vis-à-vis the UN: ‘They handed two billion dollars to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) - one of the world’s leading misinformation hubs and source of diabolical slanders against the Jewish state. They hired a former UN insider to head the President’s new Board of Peace. They voted for the UN annual budget, notwithstanding the fact that it pays antisemites to do antisemitism, like funding a planned 2026 global celebration of the antisemitic Durban hatefest - for the price of a 15% reduction in costs to which even the Secretary-General had agreed under his faux ‘reform’ umbrella.’

Moreover, ‘the newly announced list of agencies or bodies from which the US withdrew or terminated cooperation includes those in which the US has no direct role anyway, and omits UN headquarters for human wrongs, namely, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.’

‘Tabled in the last two days, the State Department budget throws out the draft text from the summer, slashing US-UN funding in favor of relatively minor adjustments,’ she added.

‘President Trump’s Executive Order requiring a review of US-UN relations was allegedly implemented -- behind closed doors and never released. His Executive Order on the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been all but ignored, with ten individuals subject to sanctions,’ she said. ‘The State Department 2026 funding package takes serious repercussions for the ICC - that is currently running a global pogrom against Israel, the IDF and its leaders - off the table.’

‘Notwithstanding that the United States is the single largest contributor to the UN, the battle to ensure that the next Secretary-General is completely different (instead of just ticking off the right gender box) has not been joined. True, there is lots of talk about being tougher in the future, next budget cycle - after the Republicans may lose the House and the ability to follow through. So, I would encourage folks to read the fine print instead of the headlines one way or the other,’ Prof. Bayefsky concluded."