USexit: The Case for Booting the UN out of America Grows Stronger

The UN’s diplomatic knifing of Israel may set the stage for a renewed campaign for American withdrawal from the body.

In his lame-duck attempt to undermine the State of Israel with a diplomatic knifing in the front, President Obama has created fertile ground for a campaign to lead the United States out of the United Nations. Or as I call it: USexit.

A Usexit (pronounced: you-sex-it) movement has rarely ever taken hold, with the last attempt to encourage such a move dying in committee in 2015.

Then, Congressman Mike Rogers (R-AL), alongside a number of other Congressmen and women, floated the American Sovereignty Restoration Act (ASA).

At the time, the bill called for a repeal of the United Nations Participation Act of 1945, much like how Brexit campaigners in the United Kingdom would prefer not to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and simply repeal the 1972 European Communities Act.

The ASA called for the following:

The President shall terminate all membership by the United States in the United Nations, and in any organ, specialized agency, commission, or other formally affiliated body of the United Nations.

It added:

The United States Mission to the United Nations is closed. Any remaining functions of such office shall not be carried out.

Commenting at the time, Rep. Mike Rogers said: “Why should the American taxpayer bankroll an international organization that works against America’s interests around the world?” The time is now to restore and protect American sovereignty and get out of the United Nations.”

“I dislike paying for something that two-bit Third World countries with no freedom attack us and complain about the United States,” his Senate colleague, Rand Paul (R-KY), previously remarked. “There’s a lot of reasons why I don’t like the UN, and I think I’d be happy to dissolve it.”

In brief, the actions of the U.S. government over the past week prove that President Obama, the U.S. administration, and the wider left-wing establishment cabal have learned nothing from 2016. They still believe that they — not “We The People” — control the political priorities of the nation.

Expect an invigorated USexit movement in the next few months.

And they fail to realise how putting a spotlight on an already morally questionable institution like the United Nations — replete with its Human Rights Council with the likes of Saudi Arabia chairing it — brings the UN itself, not Israel’s settlement-building policies, into question.

So expect a resurgence of the American Sovereignty Act and an invigorated USexit movement in the next few months.

There are, of course, a few reasons for the U.S. to maintain the United Nations on its home turf — not least the fact that the New York-based organisation allows the U.S. to spy on almost every country in the world from the comfort of Manhattan.

But the Obama administration has now accidentally heaped pressure on this relationship, and the intelligence community has, as yet, not uttered a peep about it. Too busy working on undermining the next president of the United States with the whole Russia saga, perhaps.

Nevertheless, I fully imagine a USexit campaign could take root in 2017. And a chance for Donald Trump to drain the international swamp, too.

Raheem Kassam is a Shillman-Ginsburg fellow at the Middle East Forum and editor-in-chief of Breitbart London.

Raheem Kassam is the former editor-in-chief of Breitbart London. From a Muslim family, he is devoted to combating radical Islam and exposing anti-Western activists and trends. He is credited with the downfall of Baroness Jenny Tonge and Liberal Democrat MP David Ward. In 2012, Mr. Kassam broke the Muslim Patrols story that made international headlines, and he has had a steady stream of other noteworthy media stories. He is the former chief of staff to UKIP leader Nigel Farage. He founded the counter-extremism watchdog Student Rights and served as the communications director at the Henry Jackson Society. He co-launched The Commentator website as well as founding TrendingCentral.com. He is featured regularly on the BBC, Sky News, Channel 4, Al Jazeera, and many other television channels and has been an op-ed contributor for publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Daily Telegraph, Jewish Chronicle, and Times of Israel.
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I recently witnessed something I haven’t seen in a long time. On Friday, August 16, 2024, a group of pro-Hamas activists packed up their signs and went home in the face of spirited and non-violent opposition from a coalition of pro-American Iranians and American Jews. The last time I saw anything like that happen was in 2006 or 2007, when I led a crowd of Israel supporters in chants in order to silence a heckler standing on the sidewalk near the town common in Amherst, Massachusetts. The ridicule was enough to prompt him and his fellow anti-Israel activists to walk away, as we cheered their departure. It was glorious.