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America Has Sometimes Stood Proudest at the UN When It Has Stood Alone
(Spectator-UK) Stephen Daisley - Outvoted on a resolution on Israel, on the wrong side of international opinion, the U.S. ambassador told the UN General Assembly: "The United States rises to declare before the General Assembly of the United Nations, and before the world, that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act....A great evil has been loosed upon the world. The abomination of anti-Semitism...has been given the appearance of international sanction." The U.S. was putting the world's deliberative body on notice that it intended to disregard its deliberations. None of this happened last week. The angry words were spoken by Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1975 after the UN passed Resolution 3379 and declared Zionism to be "a form of racism." Four decades later, Nikki Haley stepped out of Moynihan's shadow and issued the UN a rebuke just as fierce. The UN had voted to condemn America for acknowledging Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and committing to relocating the U.S. embassy there. As with Moynihan, Haley has been chided for her disrespect. As with Moynihan, she has been accused of isolating America in the world. Haley is guilty of pointing out that the U.S. was being lectured like a naughty child by countries that regularly line up for pocket money from Washington. U.S. contributions to the UN are a taxpayer-funded job creation scheme for anti-Americans. How dare Nikki Haley threaten to turn the tap off. And so they lined up - the human rights violators, the cowards of Western Europe, and all the lesser nations of the world - to preach and posture, living symbols of the degradation of once noble ideals. Last week was not the first time America has been more or less on its own at Turtle Bay. Whether Moynihan on Zionism-is-racism or Jeane Kirkpatrick exposing the Soviet Union's downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, America has sometimes stood proudest at the UN when it has stood alone.