UNESCO is the first U.N. agency the Palestinians have sought to join as a full member since President Mahmoud Abbas applied for full membership of the United Nations on Sept. 23. The United States, Canada and Germany voted against Palestinian membership. Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa and France voted in favour. Britain abstained. The decision to give Palestine full membership will see it lose millions of dollars in U.S. funding – more than fifth of its budget. The vote at UNESCO's general assembly came the same day Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki was scheduled to address the organisation. UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova said Friday she was very concerned about the possible withdrawal of U.S. funding. "This would have serious consequences, programmes would have to be cut, our budget would have to be rebalanced," she told AFP in an interview. "The U.S. administration supports UNESCO, but [the Americans] are trapped by laws adopted 20 years ago," Bokova said, adding that she was "neutral" on the question of Palestinian membership. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation has been holding its general assembly in Paris since last Tuesday. Just like the U.N. General Assembly in New York, the question of Palestinian membership has been put on its agenda. But while as a permanent U.N. Security Council member the U.S. has a veto that it says it will exercise at the U.N. General Assembly, no one has a veto at UNESCO. There, a two-thirds majority of its 193 voting members suffices. Arab states braved intense U.S. and French diplomatic pressure to bring the motion before the UNESCO executive committee earlier this month, which passed it by 40 votes in favor to four against, with 14 abstentions. The four votes against came from the U.S., Germany, Romania and Latvia, while most of the abstentions were from European nations. But diplomats told AFP before the vote that it would have no problem getting support to become a full member, which would automatically spark a crisis between Washington and UNESCO. Two laws passed by Israel's staunchest ally in the 1990s ban the financing of any United Nations organisation that accepts Palestine as a full member. That means UNESCO stands to lose $70 million, or 22 percent of its annual budget. "There's no chance that a Republican-controlled Congress is going to amend that legislation," said a diplomatic source at UNESCO, who asked not to be named. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland spelled out the U.S. position last week. "We've made the point that there are very clear red lines in U.S. legislation, and that if those are crossed in UNESCO, that the legislation is triggered," she said. The United States only returned to UNESCO in 2003, having boycotted the organisation since 1984 over what State Department calls "growing disparity between U.S. foreign policy and UNESCO goals." Despite the 20-year U.S. boycott, President Barack Obama now considers UNESCO a strategic interest and Washington sees it as a useful multilateral way to spread certain Western values. U.S. ambassador to UNESCO David Killion has said that "granting the Palestinians full membership now in a specialised agency such as UNESCO is premature". Several European countries, including France, agree. The Europeans want to convince the Palestinians to be satisfied for now with joining three UNESCO conventions, including on World Heritage, which is possible for a non-member state. - With Reuters
PARIS: The United Nations' cultural agency decided on Monday to give the Palestinians full membership of the body, a vote that will boost their bid for recognition as a state at the United Nations.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2011/Oct-31/152676-unesco-in-crucial-vote-on-palestine-membership.ashx#axzz1cMaRzcym
