US Defunds UNESCO After Palestine Vote 735
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."
Re:USA against the World? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:USA against the World? (Score:1, Informative)
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This law should be repealed before the US has removed itself from every UN organization in the world.
The Palestinians didn't join UNESCO to preserve anything. They did it to pressure Israel and bolster their attempts to gain statehood. The U.S. doesn't approve of this route to statehood for Palestine. Until the Palestinians learn to control their terrorist organizations, I don't approve either. Not to say that I'm happy with Israel or it's settlement plans. Still, I don't see the need to pay for what I don't approve of. Neither does the U.S. I'd say.
Re:Let's pull all foriegn aid.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How about not admitting terrorist groups (Score:4, Informative)
There's an argument to be made for creating an organization with high moral standards that does not let those with low standards in. I've heard of the "League of Democracies" and so forth for decades.
The United Nations, however, is NOT such an organization. Membership does not recognize that you are moral or democratic, or anything else. It recognizes that certain entities must be dealt with as the government of a certain area/people because the only other way to deal with that area/people is to have a war with said "government" that would be able to muster a fair number of those people to come out and fight you. (Iraq simultaneously was this horrible dictatorship AND had "the worlds fourth-largest army") And the U.N. was chartered to avoid war itself.
It's not so much a "club" you pass a test to join, it's a meeting ground where you go to meet with people you have to meet with, however many showers you want to take afterwards. The only sense it's a "club" is they exclude organizations (insurgents in the hills, typically) that may call themselves the "government in exile", but have no real power to control an area/people. We don't like the antidemocratic government of China that bumps off far more human beings every year than Palestinian fighters could dream of doing to Israel, but we gotta.
So don't take this as an affront; it's merely an acknowledgment that Palestinians elected them, that they have vastly more control over Palestinian behaviour and opinion and organization than Israel does, and that the opinions and needs of a couple of million people are - to put it mildly - not, in their own opinion, represented well at the UN by the Israeli delegation.