Free Republic

RUSH: Then we go to Trump’s United Nations speech today, which was unlike any speech at the United Nations we have ever heard an American president give. John Bolton says this is the speech of Trump’s presidency. It is the speech of his political career. It was bold, and it left no doubts. He stood up for America first. And he put the United Nations in its place. I’m sitting here, and I’m diligently doing show prep. I’m totally absorbed in what I’m doing, the Trump speech is on, and I’m listening out of the corner of my ear. And...

Like me, I’m sure most of you feel that the issue of “cultural appropriation” is one of the defining debates of our time, far more so than petty concerns over things like terrorism, war or an exploding national debt. (Okay… I’ll stop with the sarcasm for a while.) But what to do about it? In the United States we have all of these pesky rules about free speech embedded in our constitution and a history of allowing free expression for individuals. How do you get around that?Never fear. The United Nations is ready to rush to the rescue. If a...

Like E.F. Hutton, when the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights “Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health” talks, people listen. In disbelief, perhaps. Or amusement. But they listen. Well, at least Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank listens, anyway. Unfortunately, Milbank couldn’t get Dr. Dainius Puras to talk. Puras is the Lithuanian serving as the U.N.’s “Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to blah, blah, blah.” Milbank did, however, uncover an “urgent appeal” sent by Puras to the U.S. State Department, with...

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley forced Bolivia to "defend the atrocities of the Syrian regime" in "full public view" on Friday, after the country's ambassador requested a closed session to discuss President Trump's strikes in Syria. Trump ordered the missile strikes in response to a chemical weapons attack by Syrian President Bashar Assad Tuesday which killed dozens in northern Syria. Haley revealed the Bolivian ambassador's request for a private emergency session of the U.N. Security Council in a written statement Friday morning. She countered: "The United States, as president of the Council this month, decided the session would...

RUSH: I also have Nikki Haley, a couple of bites of Nikki Haley just ripping it at the United Nations earlier. Here’s take one… HALEY: It could be that Russia is knowingly allowing chemical weapons to remain in Syria. It could be that Russia has been incompetent in its efforts to remove the chemical weapons. Or it could be that the Assad Regime is playing the Russians for fools, telling them there are no chemical weapons, all the while stockpiling them on their bases. The world is waiting for the Russian government to act responsibly in Syria. The world is...

The new sheriff at the United Nations is stylish in heels but not so stylish in attitude. The delegate lounges haven't been the same since Nikki Haley arrived as the United States ambassador almost three months ago. She's blunt without being brash, and neither shy about giving the Russians the cold shoulder nor making it clear that the United States stands with Israel, not with the wolves that look for opportunities to mock, belittle and scorn the Jewish state. The previous administration seemed comfortable cozying up to the enemies of Israel and timidly (some might say "cowardly") abstained from a...

The Left’s route to promoting their radical agenda around the world is engineering the enactment of a United Nations treaty that contains their distorted “women’s rights” policies that can then be used to impose their alien feminist views on third world nations. I know this from my experience of more than 20 years at the UN –– including working as an NGO delegate advising official delegates plus being an official U.S. delegate appointed by President George W. Bush to two sessions, The Children’s Summit (2002) and the Commission on the Status of Women (2003). I’ve learned that whatever the theme...

It may shock readers to learn that the UN Human Rights Council has passed more anti-Israel resolutions than it has passed against all other countries combined? Take a look around at the rest of the world. The Syrian civil war has been raging since 2011 with close to 500,000 deaths by various estimates. Hizb’allah has built up an arsenal of 150,000 rockets in Southern Lebanon, which is in flagrant violations of UN resolution 1701. ISIS is terrorizing and murdering people in the Middle East and is responsible for numerous terror attacks in Europe and elsewhere. North Korea continues its rogue...

A September 2016 United Nations panel in Geneva decided the U.S. owed blacks reparations for a history of ‘racial terror.’ Ishaan Tharoor of the Washington Post notes: In particular, the legacy of colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality in the United States remains a serious challenge as there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent. Contemporary police killings and the trauma that they create are reminiscent of the past racial terror of lynching.This UN action, of course, was followed by last December’s resolution against...

When looking to “drain the swamp” of meddling bureaucrats and global do-gooders, there is perhaps no better place to start than on the banks of the East River in New York, home to the headquarters of the United Nations. And, with the United States’ newest U.N. Ambassador, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, sworn into office, there is no better time to start than now. Four years ago, then Secretary of State John Kerry signed the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), an international agreement regulating the sale, transfer, and export of conventional weapons, including “small arms and light weapons” – meaning...

A new sheriff arrived in town with the appointment of Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina, as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. In her first speech, she indicated the disproportionate contribution by the United States -- 22% of the UN budget and 28% of UN peacekeeping operations -- to the world organization. The UN budget should be subject "strategic cutting," and sometimes withholding of dues. In picturesque language, Haley spoke of the need for a strong U.S. role at the UN. She had already made clear during her testimony on January 18, 2017, to the Senate Foreign Relations...

On December 23, 2016, the United Nations announced the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which condemns Israeli settlements east of the 1949 armistice line, that is, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem (including the Old City with its ancient Jewish Quarter). Passage of this resolution was only possible because of the deliberate refusal of the U.S. to exercise the veto power it wields as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council. Secretary of State John Kerry insisted that in refusing to veto the resolution, the Obama administration was simply conforming to long-standing U.S. policy...

Last Thursday evening 342 out of the 435 total Members of the House of Representatives objected to last month’s United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel. In a chamber where the majority party rules, the vote was about as bipartisan as it gets. H.Res.11 was supported by most Democrats and all but four Republicans. But the House vote wasn’t entirely prompted by the anti-Israel resolution in the UN. Similar resolutions have been authored before. The House vote was prompted by the Obama Administration’s refusal to use its veto power to shoot down the UN resolution– thereby making it the first...

In his biting article in Commentary on February 1, 1981, Daniel P. Moynihan, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, 1975-76, was critical of his successor, Donald F. McHenry, for not voting against a U.N. Security Council resolution strongly critical of Israel. The United States had "joined the jackals." Moynihan remarked that for the U.S. to abstain on a UNSC resolution concerning Israel was the equivalent of acquiescing in it. Thirty-five years later, with the abstention of the U.S. in allowing UNSC Resolution 2334 to pass, the question must be posed: has the Obama administration in its final days joined...

Normally, when the U.N. Security Council passes a resolution, a vote is taken and the result recorded. Period. Something very unusual happened after the Security Council voted to declare Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria as Arab/Islamic land. The representatives of the nations applauded and celebrated what they had just done by giving themselves a standing ovation. They clapped not so much in behalf of what they gave to “Palestinians” but more so in declaring the Jewish tie to the Old City of Jerusalem as illegitimate and Israel’s attachment to the Temple Mount and Judea and Samaria as illegal. It was...

UN Security Council Resolution 2334 was the first prong of outgoing US President Barack Obama’s lame duck campaign against Israel. Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech on Wednesday was the second. On January 15, stage 3 will commence in Paris. At France’s lame duck President Francois Hollande’s international conference, the foreign ministers of some fifty states are expected to adopt as their own the anti-Israel principles Kerry set forth in his speech. The next day it will be Obama’s turn. Obama can be expected to use the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr. Day to present the Palestinian war to...

In his recent speech excoriating Israel for refusing to commit suicide by allowing a sworn enemy to have a state adjoining the Jewish state, Secretary of State John Kerry claimed the U.S. government "did not draft or originate" the UN resolution critical of Israeli "settlements." Kerry said there were no American fingerprints on the resolution and that it was totally the idea of the Egyptians and Palestinians. Except that it wasn't, if one can believe Egyptian intelligence. The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reports on a story published in an Egyptian newspaper with close ties to Egyptian Intelligence. According...

Who is the real winner in the passing of U.N. Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli “settlements” in so-called Palestinian land? It is not the Arabs who live in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, nor the leftist BDS movement, nor the world community which acted in usual blind lock-step in condemning Israel, or even the Obama administration which sacrificed American stature and credibility to express personal pique, though all appear to be gleefully rubbing grubby hands. The real winner is radical Islam, which the aforementioned parties claim to oppose. For all the talk of preserving a “two-state” solution between Israel and...

In June 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama gave a stirring speech to AIPAC, making strong commitments to the Jewish people and Israel. In December 2016, President ObamaÂ’s Secretary of State John Kerry delivered an important policy speech that directly contradicted some of candidate ObamaÂ’s words. The contrast is striking, unnerving, and downright hypocritical.To be fair, there is some consistency between the speeches, as both advocate a two-state solution, among other parallels. And on a certain level, President Obama has kept some of the commitments he made to Israel, including massive defense contracts and military aid. And it is true that,...

When Secretary of State John Kerry delivered his comprehensive statement on the Arab-Israel conflict in front of a safe audience at the State Department, he took over an hour to defend the decision of the United States to in essence allow passage of the recent UN anti-Israel resolution by abstaining from it, rather than adhering to the longstanding policy of the U.S. to veto such resolutions. The general thrust of his message was to chastise Israel for building “settlements” on land defined as “occupied Palestinian territory,” as the main obstacle preventing a two-state solution. In addition to focusing attention on...