Us against the world: Israel, the US and UNESCO

The announcement that the US, followed a few hours later by Israel, would depart from the UN’s key educational, scientific and cultural body—UNESCO—took the world by surprise. Both parties have accused the body of a ‘continuing anti-Israel bias’, particularly after it admitted Palestine as a member in 2011 and more recently inscribed the city of Hebron as a Palestinian World Heritage site.This is not the first time that the US has pulled out of UNESCO. The Reagan administration left the organisation in 1984 over concerns with corruption and a perceived ideological bias towards the Soviet Union—the US did not re-join until 2002. However, this is the first time that Israel has made moves to leave a UN body itself. While the US and Israel suffer from a sense of animosity towards the UN, their current relationship with the organisation, and their future actions within it, are critical to peace efforts in the Middle East.LOVE TO HATE, HATE TO LOVEThe US has had numerous public disagreements with the UN and its branches. Successive administrations have claimed that the UN is biased against them, and that its bureaucratic nature limits its ability to enact positive change. Organs like the Human Rights Council (HRC) have long been criticised by successive administrations; the US was kicked out of the HRC’s predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights, in 2002, and Washington boycotted the HRC entirely in 2008.The move follows a definitive trend. President Donald Trump’s tweets in January 2017 suggested the US would cancel billions in payments to UN climate change bodies, threats followed up with the US’ exit from the Paris Agreements later in the year. Republican administrations have tended to be more critical of the UN, as its conservative factions often view the organisation either as wasteful and inefficient or a stepping-stone to a ‘world government’ that jeopardises US interests. Yet rather than advocate for change within these institutions, the US has typically withheld funding or withdrawn altogether.Israel has long been an outsider within the United Nations. Thirty-two UN member states, predominantly members of the large, pro-Palestinian Arab and African bloc, have been vehemently opposed to Israel since its establishment and do not recognise it as a state. This has made it increasingly difficult for Israel to participate in the UN’s various forums. These blocs have wielded their diplomatic power in dozens of UN resolutions criticising Israel’s occupation and heavy-handed policing of the Palestinian territories. It remains the only nation given a specific agenda item at the HRC, where members are mandated to discuss Israel’s continued occupation and human rights abuses against Palestinians.

 

Source: Us against the world: Israel, the US and UNESCO | Foreign Brief

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