America Blackmails UNESCO

The United States has decided to employ its full arsenal of methods to block Palestine’s admission to the UN and UNESCO, including financial blackmail. This global superpower boasts its own traditions of promoting liberty and democracy, but it will not hesitate to use every channel of dissuasion — pressuring Palestinians and the countries who support them, threatening to withhold its financial dues from UNESCO itself — to prevent the recognition of Palestine as a state. These methods resemble the ones that dictators regularly use to forbid self-expression among their people and to limit basic human rights. Palestinians have these rights, too, but the United States is suppressing them and doing everything in its power to prevent these people, who have been ravaged by foreign occupation, from integrating themselves into the international community. It is outrageous that the United States should put the entirety of their immense power into blocking the official recognition of Palestine. Such relentless determination is inconceivable from the self-styled godfather of the Israel-Palestine peace process.

Now the Americans are prepared to suspend their active participation in UNESCO, a specialized UN agency (which depends on the financial contributions of its member states to function), for the sole reason that Palestine is not being admitted into the organization on their terms. The U.S. warned on Wednesday that they would cut their funding to UNESCO if the organization voted in favor of including the Palestinian Authority as a full-fledged member state. This is pure blackmail. Palestinians have the same rights as any other people to be represented in international bodies, including in the UN and UNESCO.

However, there is another side to the story which complicates matters. America has cited two laws passed by the United States Congress in the 1990s (over 20 years ago) which states that “[n]o funds authorized to be appropriated by this Act or any other Act shall be available for the United Nations or any specialized agency thereof which accords the Palestine Liberation Organization the same standing as member states.” So the Americans predicted that, someday, such a situation would arise, and they took the initiative to guarantee that the Palestinians could never achieve member state status within any international organization. This country is completely devoted to Israel (one of the warring parties) and has been for many years, which explains how the negotiations — and the peace process — have failed. All the while, they say they are working toward world peace. They have already warned that a vote in favor of Palestine would have “consequences.” Thus says the global “superpower.”

Tomorrow, we will see the outcome of this bizarre battle, sought by the United States. The Palestinians have successfully worked their way through the stages of applying for membership to UNESCO and have arrived at the final step: The vote of the 193 member states of the UN. The Palestinians have gathered most of the necessary two-thirds vote for admission. But the effect of the American blackmail is still unknown, as they have put terrible pressure both on the Palestinians to withdraw their candidature, and on the other members of UNESCO to dissuade them from voting in Palestine’s favor. Granted, UNESCO does rely on the financial support of the United States, which provides 22 percent of the organization’s budget, an estimated $70 million. But Arab states can most likely cover the majority of this cost. It is up to the Arabs to stand up against blackmail, to cover the deficit and allow the United States to leave. They can crush the United States’ proposed blackmail while giving much-needed aid to UNESCO.