US Defunds UNESCO After Palestine Vote

gzipped_tar writes "The U.S. withdrew funding after the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's Palestine membership vote yesterday. The decision was triggered by a 1994 US law that requires financial ties to be cut with any UN agency that accords the Palestinians full membership. As Palestine actively pursues entrance to other UN agencies, the defunding list could grow. Interestingly, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) could also be among Palestine's next target, and U.S. is the big supporter of WIPO. A much more disturbing scenario is Palestine joining the International Atomic Energy Agency, cutting American funding to the organization that monitors nuclear proliferation in states like Iran."

Comments

USA against the World?

[Calibax]

UNESCO is one of the most highly regarded and wide-spread agencies for cultural preservation in the World. There is a fundamental flaw in a law predicating U.S. contributions to the United Nations and U.N. affiliates on their members voting a certain way. UNESCO does not control its members and how they vote.

The fact that a majority of UNESCO members want to grant admission to a Palestinian state is no reason for the U.S. to "pick up its marbles and go home." UNESCO would be better with U.S. participation. The U.S. would be better off by participating in UNESCO.

This law should be repealed before the US has removed itself from every UN organization in the world.

Re:USA against the World?

[nharmon]

Don't you think this is exactly the purpose they had in mind when they passed this law? To make it as costly as possible to do something the United States does not want them to do?

And since this is blocking future funding and not current funding, this is less like picking up your marbles and going home and more like simply refusing to come to any more marble games.

Re:USA against the World?

[Anonymous Coward]

So has Israel, and they were even ejected from UNESCO over it for awhile. Either way, this article isn't about Palestine (or Israel, or anyone else in the middle east) it's about the US having a law that prevents funding for scientific and cultural pursuits for political reasons. Regardless of who the parties are, there's no good reason for such inane laws.

Re:USA against the World?

[Surt]

Unless, of course, you are running a democracy, and want your tax money spent in accordance with the people's wishes.
But you know, ignoring that reason there's no good reason.

Re:USA against the World?

[fredrated]

"tax money spent in accordance with the people's wishes"

Wow, has that happened anywhere in this country? For example, a large majority of Americans want us out of Afganistan, but don't let that bother you, just keep imagining that in this country we only spend money the people want spent.

Re:USA against the World?

[Xenkar]

It is as hilarious as illegal settlements.

Now for just a moment, imagine this:
- China has created a settlement near your town/city and has claimed all of the fertile land as its own.
- In order to provide security for their settlement, they routinely patrol your town in military vehicles and set up checkpoints.
- They build fences around their settlements and the local water supply. The water pipes that used to go from said water supply to your house have been destroyed.
- Some gun nut in your region shoots off a mortar at this Chinese settlement.
- Nothing was damaged but that mortar gave the Chinese quite a fright!
- The Chinese settlement responds with an invasion of troops and they destroy buildings and vital infrastructure.
- While you evacuated, they entered your home and decorated the walls with literal bags of human feces even though your toilet works just fine.
- New settlements are created in order to provide security for the old settlement.
- Rinse and repeat this same damned pattern over 50 years.

Now tell me, which do you sympathize with? The Chinese who are protecting their illegal settlements, or your fellow countrymen who have to deal with bullshit?

Right now we, the citizens of the United States of America, are paying aid to Israel while they continue their occupation of Palestinian lands. The amount varies from year to year but right now it is basically eight defaulted Solyndra loans, four days of our military actions against nations that couldn't even harm us if they wanted to, or 20% of NASA's yearly budget. All so Israeli can use their armored bulldozers to knock down houses of people who couldn't get building permits from the Israeli government.

In a time where politicians are calling for austerity measures, we should fix the budget with the knowledge that even if the Palestinians will still be screwed over by the Israelis, we won't be going further into debt with China because of it.

Re:USA against the World?

[TapeCutter]

The United Nations is not an organization that has the best interests of the United States at its core.

And nor should it be, it should have the best interests of all it's members at it's core, which means that it is inevitable no member will get all their own way all the time, regardless of the size of their dick or their wallet.

It includes many members would would love to damage the USA in anyway possible.

It also includes many members that the USA has, or would like to, damage. That's the whole point; "war is the failure of politics", the cold war shows that it is essential to keep talking to your political enemies, even if it is through gritted teeth with nukes pointed at each others heads.

Re:Discrimination is good for the peace process

[jd]

AFAICT, the peace process is the least of the issues involved here. UNESCO handles world heritage sites - y'know, like Pompeii which suffered two major collapses in the last week or so due to incompetent maintenance and a lack of funds. The money the Palestinians want is, according to them, going to go to a 5th century church (which is properly World Heritage) that is suffering from horrific maintenance issues and may well collapse without proper backing.

From the NERD perspective, 30% loss of money = 30% loss of World Heritage. That's a damn lot of history that had been, well, damned.

What happens between Israel and the Palestinians is, in historical terms and geographical terms, insignificant. Even if you consider the entire history of the entire region plus the rest of the Fertile Crescent, it is a pathetic 3,500 years and a trivial geographical space. It's NOTHING. The US' action has put into danger historical sites that are 70,000 years old - 20 TIMES as old as the entire recorded history for the Middle East - across an entire planet!

If you want to talk peace processes, then the Irish "Troubles" are recorded as having spanned 5,000 years and involved much of Europe and the US - twice the time the Middle East has even had issues and again many times the area. That was NOT solved by defunding the UN but WAS solved by all parties accepting that peaceful settlements were the way to go. The Basque issue, a mere 30 times older than modern Israel though younger than there have been conflicts in the region, was ALSO recently solved by an increase in mutual understanding and mutual efforts to end the futility cycle. Do you seriously think that either would have be settled today if there had been a blockade on assistance or tolerance of any kind? ESPECIALLY if that blockade had been on people completely unrelated to the parties involved?

(Would the IRA really have stopped shooting if Britain had decided to bomb the Colosseum in Rome in retaliation for the US sending a senator to Ireland? No? That's the practical upshot of what is taking place, so if the logic of such a move is inherently flawed then substituting in the current participants won't make the logic any better.)

Look, I fully understand Israel's insecurity and fears, and I respect that it has those for good reason, but nowhere in the history of humanity has anyone solved such issues by taking revenge on innocent third parties. I can't even recall any time in the history of humanity where anyone has solved such issued by taking revenge on those actually involved. If you want peace, you are going to have to do something that works. The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing, expecting different results. Insanity won't help Israel be safer.

Sound strategy

[ChaoticCoyote]

The Palestinians are hoisting the U.S by it's own petard. The U.S. government passed the 1994 law as a "do what we say or else" measure, under the false belief that this would force the UN to follow U.S. policy. Instead, the Palestinians are being admitted to UN agencies anway, and we're cutting our own throat automatically.

It's not the Palestinians who should be worried.

Re:It's the Palestinians who have the Nazi connect

[Daniel_Staal]

I actually spent several summers working in Israel, and regularly visited the West Bank. Couldn't get access to Gaza though.

As for your questions: The West Bank and (especially) Gaza are effectively light-duty concentration camps. (Not dedicated, but high-density with low access to food, water, sanitation, or jobs.) Mass graves tend to draw attention. (And direct killing isn't the system being used here.) The ~10% of the Knesset (none of whom are Palestinian: they have to be Israeli) aren't a major political force of their own. And the random police checks, and the requirement that every Palestinian who wants to enter Israel (which means any of them who want to leave their home town for any reason...) register for travel papers, in person, every year, would be similar in effect.

Of course, a closer parallel would be with aparthied-era South Africa.