Much like the anti-capitalists on the University of Minnesota’s campus, the United Nations’ (UN) most recent target are housing developments. The UN Security Council recently passed a resolution condemning the Israeli (Jewish) housing settlements.

“The establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law,” it stated.

By abstaining from the vote and refusing to veto, the United States allowed this resolution to pass. After this resolution passes, Secretary of State John Kerry declared: “If the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic – it cannot be both – and it won’t ever really be at peace.”

Attempts to de-legitimize the existence of Israel are so prevalent in the UN that it has become unsurprising. In fact, if the UN was Mean Girls, on Wednesdays they would pass anti-Semitic resolutions.Israel leads the world in UN condemnations, with 62 total.

Second place? Syria, with 17 condemnations. You read that correctly: Chemical weapons-using, Aleppo-demolishing, terrorist-harboring Syria has less than half of the condemnations that Israel has.

Anyone who argues that Israel is not the beacon of light for human rights in the Middle East is a fool, but thatrests beside the point.

The point is that the UN is where commonsense foreign policy goes to die and the United States should exit the United Nations.

The best example of the tragic death of common sense can be seen in the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, which currently includes Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Cuba, and Iraq. It is a well known fact that human rights are championed in Saudi Arabia, where it is a crime for women to drive and LGBT folks are tossed off of buildings.

It is this mind-blowing idiocy that the UN should be ashamed of, and the United States should be ashamed to be a part of it.

The argument stands that the best way to combat this idiocy is to remain in the UN and wield our veto power to protect our allies. This argument is ridiculous. The UN is to the United States as the Minnesota Student Association (MSA) is to President Kaler. The MSA believes that they have power and are making a difference with their strongly-worded resolutions but in reality, they lack any authority. As we have seen time and time again, when the MSA resolves to do something foolish, President Kaler stops them in their tracks. Their authority, similar to the power of the UN, is advisory at best and irritating at worst.

The only reason the UN is allowed to function and act with any authority is because the United States allows it.The UN can write all of the condemnations in the world, but without the United States’ backing of those resolutions and assistance in enforcing them, they mean nothing. The fact that we not only associate with the UN, but also fund them, is a disgrace.

The United Nations can have their fun allowing the very worst representatives of humanity to be on the Human Rights Council and scolding Jewish people for building homes, but the light of America, the “shining city upon a hill,” is dimmed by our continued membershipwithin it.