Opposing Palestine in UNESCO

“The state of Palestine finally exists,” said the Beirut Daily Star in an editorial. This week, UNESCO, the U.N. body responsible for science, education, and culture, voted to admit Palestine as a member. At the agency’s Paris headquarters, with Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki in attendance, the Palestinian bid received 107 “yes” votes and a mere 14 “no” votes, with 52 countries abstaining. “Not surprisingly,” the U.S., which led the “no” contingent, said that the tacit recognition of Palestinian statehood would undermine negotiations with Israel. That argument is simply nonsense. Such negotiations are “a forum in which Israel calls all of the shots.” The U.S. is no impartial mediator, since it “can be expected to indulge Israel’s every whim,” and in any case blocks all Palestinian aspirations through its Security Council veto. But the U.S. has no veto at UNESCO. And there, finally, “the world community’s wishes” for a Palestinian state have been honored.

It’s a great “moral achievement,” said the Jerusalem Al-Quds. Despite tremendous U.S. pressure, support for our Palestinian national rights and the rejection of the occupation was nearly universal, “comprising all the African and Arab countries, Islamic and Latin American countries, and most of the European Union.” This affirmation took a tangible expression in the applause and cheering that greeted the passage of our membership, as well as the “sarcastic laughter” that met Israel’s nay vote. Particularly encouraging were the votes of those U.S. allies that broke ranks to join us, most notably France, but also Spain, Ireland, and Norway. Other close U.S. allies, including Britain and Japan, chose to abstain rather than vote against us.

The U.S. attitude is baffling, said the Saudi Arabian Al-Watan. It claims that Palestinian recognition will hinder Middle East peace efforts, yet it should be obvious that a two-state solution “requires two states.” Mulishly, the U.S. has already retaliated against UNESCO for daring to oppose it. It has cut off its $80 million annual funding, which amounts to one fifth of the agency’s total funding. The cutoff was mandated by a law passed in the 1990s, which says the U.S. must deny funding to any U.N. agency that admits Palestine as a member.

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Punishing UNESCO in that way will actually hurt the U.S., said M.J. Rosenberg in AlJazeera.net. Once the U.S. has failed to pay its dues for two years, it will lose its vote in the cultural body. That will harm U.S. companies that rely on UNESCO to open markets for them in the developing world and to police international disputes over piracy. And it could get worse. U.S. national security could be threatened if the Palestinians try to join the International Atomic Energy Agency or the World Health Organization and trigger a U.S. pullout from those agencies. President Obama’s hands are tied, but the U.S. Congress could vote to waive the pullout requirement. Of course, thanks to the “powerful” Israel lobby, it won’t. Instead, it “will put Israel’s demands above U.S. interests.”