Admission will be seen by the Palestinians as a moral victory in their bid for full U.N. membership but could be costly for UNESCO.
Under U.S. law, the admission of Palestine as a full UNESCO member would trigger a cutoff in U.S. funding which accounts for 22 percent of the agency's funding."A moral victory"? Make be barf. An amoral one, more like.
Update: Palestine's in:
Palestinians gained full membership to UNESCO, the UN’s cultural organization, on Monday, winning the support of a majority of the body’s 173 members. “This vote will erase a tiny part of the injustice done to the Palestinian people,” Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki told the UNESCO congregation in Paris following the vote. However, the vote means that UNESCO may lose more than 20 per cent of its total funding, which it gets from the U.S., which has vocally opposed Palestinian membership in the UN. Israel has also spoken against the result, calling it a rejection of the bilateral peace process and saying that it will “bring no change on the ground.” Although the move is largely symbolic, it shows a significant level of international support for the recognition of a Palestinian state. The UN Security Council will vote on full Palestinian membership next month. In Monday’s vote, 107 countries, including rising powers like China, India and Brazil, supported the Palestinians’ full membership in UNESCO. Canada was among the 14 countries that voted against Palestinian membership. Fifty-two countries abstained.Shame on India for going with the flow. It has the same enemies as the Jews do, and should have had spine enough to vote nay.
Update: The U.S. is suspending its UNESCO funding, not as a matter of principle, but because, by law, it has to.
Yeah, UNESCO probably will bite the hand that feeds it. The temptation to stick it to "the Man" (i.e., the U. S., by undermining Israel--which, of course, is seen as an American proxy in the Middle East) will be too great. And liberals have shown themselves quite willing to cut off their noses to spite their faces.
ReplyDeleteJust don't be too sure that, just because U. S. law mandates a cutoff of funding, the big O won't simply ignore said law--as he has so many others, successfully--and simply decree an executive order that funding will continue, based on some specious legal reasoning. He might just get away with it, too.