Rick Scott invokes Israel-Hamas war, United Nations in latest Senate leadership pitch

Rick Scott addresses the Republican Jewish Coalition. Image via Rick Scott campaign, 2024.

Florida’s junior Senator wants to lead the Republican Caucus if he’s re-elected next month. And he also vows to try to defund the United Nations (U.N.) if that comes to pass.

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott promised to “force a vote to halt ALL funding to the UN — which gives a global stage to the world’s worst human rights abusers and terror sponsors and for years has supported Iran-backed Hamas terrorism” if Republicans retake the Senate.

Per the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S. is the biggest “donor” to the international organization, ponying up $18 billion in 2022 to back a group that often frustrates America’s strategic ends.

Scott’s vow came in the form of a quote tweet of Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who declared U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres “persona non-grata” for his failure to “unequivocally condemn Iran’s heinous attack on Israel, as almost every country in the world has done.”

Guterres, who is “banned from Israeli soil” according to Katz, “has yet to denounce the massacre and sexual atrocities committed by Hamas murderers on October 7, nor has he led any efforts to declare them a terrorist organization.”

“A Secretary-General who gives backing to terrorists, rapists, and murderers from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and now Iran — the mothership of global terror — will be remembered as a stain on the history of the UN,” Katz continued.

Guterres, for his part, is neutral in the conflict that has dominated the region in the wake of last October’s Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians.

He took to Instagram Tuesday to “condemn the broadening of the Middle East conflict with escalation after escalation” and call for a cease-fire.

Scott blames President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for strengthening Iran ahead of the “waves of missile attacks” launched by Tehran against the only democracy in the Middle East, an escalation of the conflict which already sees Israel involved in operations against Hamas and Hezbollah, terror organizations backed by the Iranian government.

“Israel must do what it takes to defend itself. The United States must stand strong with Israel, immediately give everything it needs to respond to and end the terror of the Ayatollah and his evil regime, and be clear that Iran will pay dearly for these attacks,” Scott opined Tuesday.