HRES 297: Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Secretary of State should withhold United States contributions to the regularly assessed biennial budget of the United Nations for purposes of the General Assembly of the United Nations if the General Assembly adopts a resolution in favor of recognizing a state of Palestine outside of or prior to a final status agreement negotiated between, and acceptable to, the State of Israel and the Palestinians.

Congress: 112 · Status: active · Israel/Palestine classification: pro-Israel

Data (JSON) — machine-readable record of this bill (identifiers, sponsor, classification, actions, and the member-by-member vote breakdown).

Official record on Congress.gov — full text, actions, and cosponsor history for HRES 297.

Sponsor: Chabot, Steve (R-OH)

Summary

Expresses the sense of the House of Representatives that the Secretary of State should withhold U.S. contributions to the regularly assessed biennial budget of the United Nations (U.N.) for the U.N. General Assembly if the General Assembly adopts a resolution in favor of recognizing a Palestinian state outside of or prior to a final status agreement negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians.

Editorial Explainer

This resolution expresses the House's view that the State Department should stop paying the U.S. share of the UN General Assembly's budget if the UN votes to recognize Palestine as a state before Israel and Palestinians reach a final peace deal. It does not require the withholding—only urges it as policy.

Why it matters

The resolution conditions U.S. UN funding on blocking Palestinian statehood recognition at the UN unless negotiated directly with Israel first, effectively giving Israel veto power over UN recognition efforts. This is a non-binding statement of House sentiment but signals potential leverage in future appropriations debates over UN funding.