Many Losers and One Supposed Winner

The disaster could hardly have been greater: By accepting Palestine into UNESCO, the UN duped the United States, isolated Israel and turned one of its own organizations into a Middle East battlefield. Not only that, it’s not even a lasting success for the Palestinians.

The United Nations cultural organization UNESCO managed to pull off a masterpiece that resulted in a lot of losers and only one supposed winner. A greater disaster is hardly imaginable. Kudos.

The first loser is UNESCO itself. This special UN organization for education, science and culture voted almost unanimously to accept Palestine as a full member, although Palestine isn’t even officially a nation yet. It has thus anticipated Security Council action and encouraged the Palestinians to turn other U.N. organizations into Middle East battlefields. The United States will try to weaken UNESCO by withholding funds necessary for it to operate.

But the United States loses as well. It is acting unilaterally on Israel’s side against the Palestinians and in so doing shows the world that it doesn’t have to accept the results of majority votes by the international body if it doesn’t like them. In so doing, President Obama will incur the enmity of the Arab world while simultaneously noting what little influence American desires now have. Not even Great Britain supported the negative U.S. vote.

Israel builds settlements while the Palestinians gain ground in global politics

The lopsided majority in favor of Palestine demonstrated the isolation of Israel, the third loser. It can build as many settlements as it wants; all that happens is that Palestine gains ground on the global political map. Soon, Palestine will find acceptance into such organizations as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Then the United States won’t be so quick to turn off the money spigot because it needs such organizations to counter Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions, for example.

Fourth on the list of losers? The European Union. EU common foreign policy reveals itself to be wishful thinking. Yes, No, Abstain — Europe could not vote any more disjointedly. Germany could have claimed its no vote was cast because of Germany’s special obligation toward Israel. An abstention would have been defensible provided other EU nations had done likewise. But that much agreement isn’t possible in Europe. How Europe intends to speak on the Middle East conflict in the future remains its own deep secret.

At least the Palestinians can celebrate their acceptance into UNESCO, as short-lived as it may be. They’ll soon see how little this symbolic victory is worth. Sure, they’ve found a way to pressure Israel and anger the United States, but even a weakened America is powerful enough to thwart Palestine’s ambitions for statehood. UNESCO in Paris doesn’t decide that question, the UN General Assembly in New York does — and the U.S. can exercise its veto there. Palestinian impatience is understandable; they want to finally be a nation. But their detour via Paris may prove to be the wrong route.