Texas Senator Ted Cruz has said that Donald Trump, if made president again, would pull the United States out of the United Nations if Israel is expelled from the international bloc following calls by the Palestinian Authority.
Last month, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas announced during a speech at the U.N. General Assembly that his team intended to submit documents aimed at revoking Israel's U.N. membership over its unwillingness to accept a two-state solution.
Israel and Palestine have been engaged in renewed conflict after Hamas launched an armed incursion from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which Hamas gunmen killed about 1,200 people and took 251 others as hostages. According to the Hamas-run health ministry, more than 42,600 people have been killed in Gaza since then.
Cruz argued that the U.S. should withdraw from the U.N. altogether if Israel is removed. "I believe Trump would pull us out of the U.N., and I think if the U.N. understands those are the real consequences, they won't throw Israel out," he said in an episode of his podcast Verdict.
"The Palestinian Authority is pushing an effort in the U.N. to expel Israel from the General Assembly; it is in many ways unsurprising, but what sadly is also unsurprising is that the Biden-Harris administration is doing little to nothing to fight it. I've called for the Biden-Harris administration to stand up for Israel," he said.
"If they don't, if the U.N. expels Israel, the U.S. should halt all funding from America to the U.N."
The GOP lawmaker also accused the international bloc of being "fundamentally corrupt" and full of "antisemites."
Newsweek has contacted the U.N. for comment.
The Texas Republican criticized the U.N.'s treatment of Israel in a letter circulating among lawmakers on Capitol Hill and warning of a harsh U.S. reaction if the Palestinian Authority were to successfully suspend or expel Israel from the U.N.
In the latest episode of his podcast, Cruz quoted from the letter, which he sent to lay out what "the consequences of such an action are likely to be, especially for America's relationships with the U.N. and the Palestinians."
"The effort to diplomatically isolate Israel is aimed at ultimately destroying the Jewish state, which is both obscene and antithetical to American national security interests," Cruz wrote in the letter.
"If Israel is suspended from the U.N. General Assembly, we will move to limit American participation and funding across the U.N., including U.N. programs, funds, and other entities and bodies, as well as its specialized agencies and related organizations, both those in which the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] participates and generally."
He added: "The proposal by President Abbas to suspend Israel from the U.N. General Assembly would straightforwardly violate and fundamentally abrogate those commitments, in turn requiring a comprehensive reevaluation of the U.S.-Palestinian relationship."
The U.S. has been one of Israel's closest allies in the U.N. since its inception.
Cruz referenced Reagan-era policies on his podcast and said he "believes Regan was right." President Ronald Reagan said in 1984 that "if Israel is ever forced to walk out of the U.N., the United States and Israel will walk out together."
Cruz also criticized former president Barack Obama for allegedly being anti-Israeli during the latest episode of his podcast.
At the tail end of 2016, the Obama administration abstained from voting on a U.N. Security Council resolution that called for a halt to all Israeli settlement construction in the Palestinian territories, marking a significant shift in U.S. foreign policy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The resolution was passed with a vote of 14 in favor and the one abstention from the United States.
In his speech to the U.N. last month, Abbas said: "I call for suspending Israel's membership in the General Assembly until it fulfills its obligations and the conditions for accepting its membership and implements all the resolutions of the U.N. and its bodies."
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