Today the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization voted to recognize Palestine as a full member. This is big news since it is an important international organization, and the first to recognize Palestine. A few weeks ago when UNESCO announced that it would consider Palestinian membership, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton objected saying that the organization does not have the authority to make that decision and should wait until the UN general assembly votes. But they didn't. Part of what made this vote possible is that the veto rules of the UN general assembly do not apply in UNESCO, and therefore the US (or other security council members) are unable to veto the vote (which the US had done in favor of Israel 32 by the time President Bill Clinton left office). The vote was 107 votes in favor, 14 against and 52 abstentions. Haaretz reported that of the major international players "The United States, Canada and Germany voted against Palestinian membership. Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa and France voted in favor. Britain abstained." This is a great achievement and it is great to see an international body taking action to end the status quo that has allowed Palestinian territory to be slowly diminished over the last forty four years.
The big news that comes along with this is that the US has, in response to the UNESCO vote, cut its funding to the organization. The next payment of $60 million due in November will not be delivered and the US has cutting its future funding. This might should sound weird. Why is the US cutting funding to one of the most influential and important international aid organizations? Yahoo news reported that this means cutting funds for the protection of "historic heritage sites and works to improve world literacy, access to schooling for girls and cultural understanding." The US provides 1/5 of the organization's funding. The reality is that the US is required by longstanding legislation to withdraw funding from any international organization that recognizes Palestine before official peace is made with Israel.
This is one of the elements that is the most frustrating about the reaction of Israel and the US in the last few months in which the Palestinian Authority (PA) has changed its course of action to try to gain international recognition as a state, rather than rely on the US lead peace process. The US and Israel have consistently responded to the PA's new policy by saying that it endangers the peace process. This is only true for one reason: The PA is not doing what Israel and the US want it to do. What is ironic is that they are doing exactly what the World Zionist Organization (the organization that advocated for the founding of the state of Israel) did more than sixty years ago when they lobbied international powers to recognize Israel in the British mandate of Palestine, what ultimately led to the creation of the state of Israel.
In response to the UNESCO vote Israel has said that it would reconsider its cooperation with the organization. I find this surprising that US legislation is more extreme than Israel's own reaction to the UNESCO vote. It's a good example of how the US has for some time been passing legislation that is more in the interest of Israel than even in the interest of US citizens, not to mention the international community. If you want more information about whether US policy toward Israel is beneficial for US interests world wide, check out the article by John Mearsheimer (Harvard University) and Steven Walt (University of Chicago). They are two of the most respected and influential political scientists in the field of International Relations. Their article published in 2006 entitled The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy (Middle East Policy, Sep2006, Vol. 13 Issue 3, p29) was published as a book in 2007 under the same name. I have not read the book but the article is an important work, analyzing whether US policy toward Israel is beneficial for the United States, comparing it to policy toward other regions of the world and other allies. It is an impartial and professional analysis of some of the effects of US policy toward Israel. Unfortunately I cannot post the article here but check out the wikipedia post about it and comment if you really cannot find the article or the book and I'll try to help you out.
- J.G.
No comments:
Post a Comment