Florida Republican urges defunding UN Human Rights Council until it condemns Hamas

A Florida Republican congresswoman is introducing a bipartisan bill to strip the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) of taxpayer funding until the international body condemns the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., on Monday introduced the Stand With Israel Act to withhold U.S. funding to the UNHRC until a resolution is passed condemning Hamas after the group’s deadly surprise terrorist attack on Israel on October 7.

“It should not be a heavy lift for the UN, which claims to promote global human rights, to pass a resolution condemning what will go down in history as one of the deadliest attacks against the Jewish people,” Luna said in a press release exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital.

CALLS FOR UN LEADER’S RESIGNATION INTENSIFY AFTER ‘SHAMEFUL’ COMMENTS ABOUT HAMAS ATTACKS ON ISRAEL

“The United States should not fund the UN Human Rights Council until it stops targeting our closest ally,” Luna said. “The UN must unequivocally condemn Hamas’s utter disregard for human life and the terror they are inflicting on Israelis and the innocent Palestinians they use as human shields.”

Luna said that until “this institution can defend objective human rights, not subjective ideological bias, it is a scourge to the values it claims to champion.”

“The hypocrisy in all of this is while the UNHRC lectures Israel on defense, China (one of their HRC members) is actively putting Muslims in concentration camps,” Luna said. “It’s time they save the world their virtue-signaling and we defund them.”

The Stand With Israel Act prohibits taxpayer funds from going toward the UNHRC until both the U.N. Security Council and U.N. General Assembly adopt a clear resolution condemning the Palestinian terrorist organization.

Luna’s bill has several co-sponsors, including Democrat Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz and Republican Reps. Brian Babin, Lance Gooden, and Randy Weber of Texas; Andy Biggs of Arizona; Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma; Eric Burlison of Missouri; John Curtis of Utah; Nicole Malliotakis and George Santos of New York; Mary Miller of Illinois; Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey; Andy Ogles of Tennessee; and Victoria Spartz of Indiana.

“The UN’s inability to condemn Hamas’ barbaric terrorist attacks on Israel is an absolute disgrace to the international community,” said Van Drew. “The United States should not be providing taxpayer dollars to a body that fails to uphold the very principles of human rights it was created to protect.”

“The UNHRC should be ashamed and not a single cent of American tax dollars should fund this corrupt organization,” said Burlison. 

“That the United Nations—intended to promote and protect all human rights around the globe—can’t muster the decency to denounce one of the most egregious genocidal terror organizations is reprehensible,” said Weber. “The horrors perpetrated by Hamas in killing thousands of Israelis are the definition of a blatant attack on human rights. Still, the historically anti-Semitic UN ‘human rights’ Council continues to prove that it is utterly useless, and it must be defunded.”

Luna’s bill comes as United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres faces calls to resign over a speech that critics said rationalized Hamas’ actions.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan on Tuesday urged Guterres to resign, ripping into the U.N. secretary-general for ostensibly rationalizing Hamas’ murder of 1,400, including Americans, Oct. 7 in Israel.

Guterres responded to the criticism against him by noting in a statement outside the U.N. Security Council, “I am shocked by the misrepresentations by some of my statements yesterday in the Security Council. As if… as if I was justifying acts of terror by Hamas. This is false. It was the opposite.”

The U.N. has long faced accusations of antisemitism. 

In 1975, a majority of U.N. member states passed a resolution equating the founding philosophy of the state of Israel — Zionism — with racism. Member states overturned the resolution in 1991, but critics say it damaged the reputation of the Middle East’s only democratic state, Israel. 

Fox News Digital’s Benjamin Weinthal contributed reporting.