Palestine admitted to UNESCO as full member, US suspends support

The resolution was adopted to loud applause by 107 countries, with 14 voting against and 52 abstaining.


Afp 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 and full membership in the UN General Assembly.

"The general assembly decides to admit Palestine as a member of Unesco," said the resolution that was adopted to loud applause by 107 countries, with 14 voting against and 52 abstaining.

Palestinian foreign minister Riyad alMalki, who was at Unesco's Paris headquarters for the vote, hailed "a historic moment that gives Palestine back some of its rights," while Israel said the move damaged hopes for peace.

"This is a unilateral Palestinian manoeuvre which will bring no change on the ground but further removes the possibility for a peace agreement," the Israeli foreign ministry said in a statement.

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.

Washington has slammed the move as counterproductive and premature.

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," he 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 United States 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 United States boycotted Unesco from 1984 to 2003 over what the State Department called "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.

COMMENTS (18)

T.M | 12 years ago | Reply

The muslim countries should pool in to make the payment of $60 Million as a means to encourage such actions and remove dependance on US funding of such institutions.

G. Din | 12 years ago | Reply

@Motsomi Masilo: There is no divine funding of UN and its institutions. They are all dependent on US support. Muslims have OIC. Why doesn't it rival UN? If it could, it would have not been an irrelevant club where Arabs meet and drink Turkish coffee in those ..oh so miniature cups. America had to stop funding of UNESCO because of its law which forbids such funding if Palestine is inducted. Let us see how Arabs shall fill the void left by America's withdrawal of support. Prediction: They will not. Pakistan is begging IMF, not OIC, to bail it out because even Pakistan knows it cannot count on its brothers in ummah. If you don't know this IMF is mostly US funded. As far as pulling UN out of New York, go ahead and try it. If you do so, you would probably be lynched since you will have denied all those non-American self-important government functionaries their periodic shopping jaunts in Europe and America. Get down to earth, my friend, which world are you living in?

VIEW MORE COMMENTS
Replying to X

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.

For more information, please see our Comments FAQ