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UNESCO Votes In Favor of Palestinians
As a result of this vote, UNESCO will lose 22 percent of contribution from the United States, which amounts to $70 million, and 3 percent from Israel. US State Department spokeswoman said that the contributions and another $60 million included for this month will no longer be paid to UNESCO.
The vote is a morale victory for the Palestinian Authority, and was hailed with “Long live Palestine!”, cheered in French, as the vote happened in Paris. The Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority said that by this vote a small part of the injustice done to Palestine is erased.
In a speech on the UNESCO floor, the Prime Minister added that the request for membership of UNESCO would only benefit the world organization. He was careful to stress out that the bid for membership of this cultural agency was in no way connected to the bid for statehood at the United Nations Security Council.
The United States attempted to thwart the vote by sending a representative of the administration to UNESCO to determine them to change the law that allows the vote. The UNESCO law, adopted in 1990 and 1994 mandates that if Palestine became the member of the UN agency, all the American funds would be cut off. Lawyers said that there was no way around it.
The American ambassador said that the vote was “premature,” and added that America will try to find a way to continue supporting UNESCO’s work. The United States urged that UN agencies should wait for a decision of the Security Council and for an application to statehood resulted of negotiations with Israel before they cast a vote on such a delicate matter.
Arab ministers considered the stance of the United States a little unfair considering that it has threatened to oppose the Security Council vote and has attempted to prevent the collection of the nine votes necessary for the vote on Palestinian statehood to pass.
The remark comes as the new non-permanent member of the Security Council, Bosnia and Herzegovina, announced it would abstain from the vote on Palestinian statehood. The decision comes a few days after an incident in Sarajevo, the capital of the European country, that involved a Wahhabi Serbian shooting at the American embassy. At the time of the shooting the collective presidency of Bosnia did not have a position on the vote in the Security Council.
The vote in the Security Council makes sure that the United States does not have to use its veto against Palestinian bid, a move which would compromise its foreign policy in the Middle East.
The Americans insist that no Palestinian statehood can be recognized without negotiations with Israel, as Israel is interested in security guarantees and the recognition of the state as a State of the Jews.
Israel fear that by imposing an international recognition of Palestine as a state, the Palestinian Authority is attempting the establishment of a state which does not recognize officially Israel and offers no security guarantees.
Both parties in the American Congress expressed their dissatisfaction at the decision to receive Palestine as a full member of the UNESCO, and Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu convened a meeting of the eight important ministers of the cabinet to discuss measures that are to be implementing in the wake of the international decision.
It was not clear whether the decisions would be made on Tuesday, but among the propositions are the canceling of VIP status to the Palestinian Authority officials, increasing settlement constructions, and refusing to collect taxes for the Palestinian Authority.
Israel also announced that it would reconsider its cooperation with UNESCO, after having accused them of politicizing their activity by the vote on Palestinian membership.
The Arab states are now consulting to the purpose of finding a way to compensate UNESCO for the loss of American money in funding.
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