Israel Cuts $6M in U.N. Funding Over Anti-Israel Resolution

Israel said on Friday it would cut $6 million in funding to the United Nations in 2017 in protest against a U.N. Security Council resolution that demanded an end to Israeli building on land liberated in the Six-Day War.

The United States abstained from the Dec. 23 vote, allowing the 15-member Security Council to adopt the resolution with 14 votes in favor. Israel and President-elect Donald Trump had called for Washington to wield its veto.

Israel’s mission to the United Nations said funding would be cut to U.N. bodies it described as “anti-Israel,” including the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People and the Division for Palestinian Rights.

“It is unreasonable for Israel to fund bodies that operate against us at the U.N.,” Israeli U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement. “The U.N. must end the absurd reality in which it supports bodies whose sole intent is to spread incitement and anti-Israel propaganda.”

The Israeli mission said it would move ahead with further initiatives aimed at ending anti-Israel activities at the United Nations after Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

The U.N. Security Council last adopted a resolution critical of settlements in 1979, with the United States also abstaining.