Lead by Israel on October 31st,
the US and its truckling planetary ring of countries voted against
Palestine’s full membership at the UN Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Nations like Palau and Vanuatu,
which were challenging for me to pronounce and locate on the world map,
joined with Israel, US, Canada and Germany rejecting Palestine’s entry
to the UN organization. Furious over the overwhelming UNESCO’s General
Assembly vote, the US decided to defund the UN organization.
The ill-advised US decision reminded
me of a discussion I had a while back with a colleague on abortion
rights. The person was expressing his dismay with the US court position
legalizing abortion, stating: “I don’t want my tax money to support
abortion.” For which I retorted: and I don’t want my money to support
the military industrial complex.
I continued: if every tax payer had
the privilege to withhold taxes from programs they disagreed with, there
would be no public funding for many of the essential services provided
by the government, like your son’s college financial aid.
This takes us back to US’
displeasure with the international community vote to admit Palestine to
UNESCO. Voting at UN agencies is almost always not unanimous. Imagine
then, if each country disagreeing with a UN vote decides to withhold its
contribution to the respective UN agency. Will there be a UN today?
No single nation should be allowed
to blackmail the collective well of the international community in order
to serve local political gains by self-centered politicians seeking
parochial votes and money. This is certainly the case in the US where
pro Israel Jewish money and votes are coveted by political hopefuls from
both parties.
The US and its submissive voting
club at UN organizations, like Samoa and the Solomon Islands as well as
the aforementioned nations, counted for less than 10 percent of the
votes at UNESCO on October 31st. Yet by flexing its financial
muscle, the US wants to overrule the international community’s vote of
more than one hundred nations.
Undoubtedly at twenty two percent of
UNESCO’s annual budget, the US funding is considerable. However, the US
benevolent contributions were not merely altruistic. For the funding
allowed the US to direct substantial resources from UNESCO and other UN
organizations to its war zones.
For instance, following the war and
occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, the number of UNESCO staffing and
programs in these countries reached unprecedented levels.
The lack of funding will likely lead
to reduction in UNESCO services and staffing forcing the US to supplant
the war necessitated UNESCO programs with US personnel and money. Or
else, the lack of these programs will undeniably weaken US efforts to
establish lasting peace in these countries.
While UNESCO is expected to suffer
from the shortfall in US funding, the US will correspondingly lose its
influence over UNESCO’s global programs, as it did for 16 years when
Reagan pulled the US out of UNESCO in 1984.
The US vote against Palestine’s full
UNESCO membership was influenced by Israel’s lobby and its twisted view
of the never ending peace negotiation. By being on the wrong side of
the UNESCO vote, America has nothing to gain but international isolation
and Arab public resentment for supporting Israel’s irrational disregard
to international norms.
