US cuts funding for UNESCO after Palestinian vote
The Obama administration is cutting off funding for the U.N. cultural agency because it approved a Palestinian bid for full membership
- AP
- Published: 22:00 October 31, 2011
WASHINGTON: The Obama administration is cutting off funding for the U.N. cultural agency because it approved a Palestinian bid for full membership.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland says Monday's vote triggers a long-standing congressional restriction on funding to UN bodies that recognize Palestine as a state before an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is reached.
Nuland says UNESCO's decision was "regrettable, premature and undermines our shared goal to a comprehensive, just and lasting peace" between Israelis and Palestinians.
She says the US would refrain from making a $60 million payment it planned to make in November.
But Nuland said the US would maintain membership in the body.
The Palestinians want full membership in the UN, but Israel opposes the bid. The US says it would veto a vote in the Security Council.
Palestine admitted to UNESCO as full member
Palestinians won a crucial vote to enter UNESCO as a full member on Monday
- AFP
- Published: 18:08 October 31, 2011
PARIS: Palestinians won a crucial vote to enter UNESCO as a full member on Monday, scoring a symbolic victory in their battle for statehood ahead of a similar vote at the UN General Assembly in New York.
"The general assembly decides to admit Palestine as a member of UNESCO," said the resolution adopted by 107 countries, with 14 voting against and 52 abstaining.
"This vote will help erase a tiny part of the injustice done to the Palestinian people," Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki told the assembly as the vote took place.
France, which had voiced serious doubts about the motion, approved it along with almost all Arab, African, Latin American and Asian nations, including China and India.
Israel, the United States, Canada, Australia and Germany voted against, while Japan and Britain abstained.
The United States and Israel are set now to withdraw their funding from the UN cultural body, while other UN agencies may have to debate the thorny issue.
The US has slammed the move as counterproductive and premature, while Israel's ambassador Nimrod Barkan admitted before the vote that he was resigned to the Palestinians gaining entry.
Staunch Israel ally the United States in the 1990s banned the financing of any United Nations organisation that accepts Palestine as a full member, meaning the body would lose $70 million, or 22 percent of its annual budget.
US ambassador to UNESCO David Killion said after the vote that "this action today will complicate our ability to support UNESCO programmes."
Barkan warned that those who voted for the resolution would lose influence over Israel.
"It certainly will weaken their ability to have any influence on the Israeli position," Barkan told AFP.
Barkan slammed countries that "have adopted a science fiction version of reality by admitting a non-existent state to the science organisation ... UNESCO should deal in science not science fiction."
He admitted that the vote, while symbolic, could have a knock-on effect: "There is potential for a cascading effect of this resolution on many other UN specialised agencies and in New York."
Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas submitted the request for membership of the UN General Assembly in September, and the Security Council is to meet on November 11 to decide whether to hold a formal vote on the application.
As a permanent UN Security Council member the US has a veto that it says it will exercise at the UN General Assembly, but no one has a veto at UNESCO.
Arab states braved intense US and French diplomatic pressure to bring the motion before the UNESCO executive committee in October, which passed it by 40 votes in favour to four against, with 14 abstentions.
The Palestinians previously had observer status at UNESCO.
UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova said Friday she was very concerned about the possible withdrawal of US funding.
"This would have serious consequences, programmes would have to be cut, our budget would have to be rebalanced," she told AFP.
"The US administration supports UNESCO, but (the Americans) are trapped by laws adopted 20 years ago," Bokova said, adding she was "neutral" on the question of Palestinian membership.
The United States only returned to UNESCO in 2003, having boycotted the organisation since 1984 over what State Department calls "growing disparity between US foreign policy and UNESCO goals."
Despite the 20-year US boycott, President Barack Obama now considers UNESCO a strategic interest and Washington sees it as a useful multilateral way to spread certain Western values.
The Europeans had tried to convince the Palestinians to be satisfied for now with joining three UNESCO conventions, including on World Heritage, which is possible for a non-member state.
Palestinian UNESCO move harms peace hopes: Israel
Israel warned that a UNESCO decision on Monday to grant the Palestinians full membership would harm efforts to secure a peace agreement between the two sides.
"Israel rejects the decision of the General Assembly of UNESCO of the 31st October accepting Palestine as a member state of the organisation," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
"This is a unilateral Palestinian manoeuvre which will bring no change on the ground but further removes the possibility for a peace agreement.
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