A Possible Return to UNESCO ­by the United States ­– A Very Bad Idea

• Recent media reports indicate that the United States is considering re-engaging with UNESCO and is encouraging Israel to do so as well. This occurrence follows both the United States and Israel’s withdrawal from the organization in 2018 after the granting of full member-state status to the Palestinians, and in light of highly politicized, anti-Israel resolutions of the organization.
• Congressional legislation prohibits the United States from contributing to UN organizations that grant full, state membership to any group that does not have internationally recognized attributes of statehood. This legislation, therefore, bans U.S. contributions to UNESCO.
• In granting full membership status to the Palestinians, as well as its acute politicization, hostility, and bias against Israel, UNESCO is violating its own basic purposes and functions, including the requirement to “contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among the nations through education, science and culture,” set out in Article 1 of its own constitution.
• Rejoining UNESCO would imply recognition of a Palestinian state despite the fact that no such state exists and despite the absence of any permanent status agreement between Israel and the Palestinian leadership. The act would set a toxic precedent for other UN organizations.
• Recognizing Palestinian statehood by rejoining UNESCO would further contravene the premise of the Oslo Accords that the permanent status of the territories must be resolved by direct negotiation between Israel and the Palestinians and not through unilateral measures intended to bypass such negotiations. The United States is a signatory to the Oslo Accords as a witness.
• The U.S. Administration should reconsider this issue and act in accordance with its own policies of supporting the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiation process and postpone a return to UNESCO pending the achievement of a permanent status agreement.

Introduction

Recent media reports indicate that the Biden administration is seriously considering re-engaging with UNESCO and restoring its status to that of a full-paying member of the organization. The same reports relate to the fact that the United States is urging Israel to make a similar move.¹

This was recently confirmed by U.S permanent representative to the UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who expressed support for such a move, claiming that it would be easier to influence the organization from within than from without: “Since the U.S. withdrawal from UNESCO, we have seen that many of our adversaries have really exploited the vacuum we left to advance their own authoritarian agenda in the organization. And we don’t believe that’s in U.S. or Israel’s interest.”²

Such talk of rapprochement with UNESCO comes four years after both the United States, under former President Donald Trump, and Israel withdrew from the organization in 2018, claiming anti-Israel bias, and seven years after former President Barak Obama suspended payment of membership dues in 2011 when the organization overwhelmingly voted to grant full member-state status to the Palestinians.³

Such a politically-generated resolution, similar to other such resolutions adopted by the automatic majority in the UN and its specialized agencies, ignored the simple fact that no Palestinian state exists and no Palestinian state has membership in the UN. On the contrary, UN General Assembly Resolution 67/19 (2012), which served as the basis for granting full membership status to the Palestinians in UNESCO, did not establish a Palestinian state, but merely upgraded them to “non-member observer State status in the United Nations.”⁴

Granting full member status was therefore not compatible with the requirements of the 1945 UNESCO Constitution, which refers specifically, in its second article, to full membership only by state members in the UN.⁵

The U.S. suspension of payment of its membership dues and subsequent decision to leave the organization was the result of Congressional legislation – the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriation Act, 1994, that “Prohibits voluntary or assessed contributions to the United Nations or any affiliated organization that grants full membership as a state to any group that does not have the internationally recognized attributes of statehood.”⁶

Thus, this legislation bans U.S. contributions to the UN or any of its specialized agencies that grant membership as a state to the Palestinians. Accordingly, U.S. payments to UNESCO (including a debt of $542 million) were halted by the Obama administration in 2011, bringing about an end to U.S. voting rights in the organization. Ultimately, during the Trump administration in 2018, the United States decided to leave the organization.

In order for the United States to engage once more with UNESCO, Congress would have to rescind that legislation or grant a waiver.

Evidently, encouraged by thoughts in the Biden administration of a return to UNESCO, Congress’ Senate Appropriations Committee recently introduced legislation to waive the previous law⁷ if the administration and Congress believe that rejoining UNESCO would allow Washington to counter Chinese influence or promote other U.S. interests.⁸ To become law, the appropriations bill containing the waiver would have to pass both the Senate and House of Representatives, and there has been no indication from congressional leaders, if and when such a vote might take place. The issue is not likely to be raised prior to contentious congressional elections next year. The Democrats currently hold slim majorities in both houses.

Israel’s Opposition to UNESCO

Granting full state membership to the Palestinians was also one of Israel’s issues with UNESCO, in addition to growing politicization, hostility, and blatant bias against Israel, in stark violation of the basic purposes and functions of UNESCO as set out in the opening provisions of its Constitution (Article I(1)), according to which:

The purpose of the Organization is to contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among the nations through education, science, and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law, and for the human rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of the world, without distinction of race, sex, language or religion, by the Charter of the United Nations.

Such acute politicization and undermining of its basic purposes and functions are typified by a number of resolutions of the organization’s Executive Board that negate Jewish ties to Judaism’s most holy sites in Jerusalem.⁹

Similarly, in a 2016 resolution, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee registered the biblical Tomb of the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob located in Hebron in the name of the “state of Palestine” when it inscribed it onto its “List of World Heritage in Danger.” As the Tomb also houses the “Ibrahimi (Abraham) Mosque,” the UNESCO inscription focused primarily on the site’s Islamic history rather than its earlier Jewish one.¹⁰

Political and Legal Implications of Rejoining UNESCO

Rejoining UNESCO would imply an indirect legal recognition by the United States and Israel of Palestinian membership as a full state in the organization. This would not be in accordance with international law, which does not recognize that the Palestinians fulfill the requirements for statehood.¹¹

Rejoining UNESCO would be perceived to be an acknowledgment of Palestinian efforts to achieve statehood outside the framework of negotiations with Israel, inasmuch as it implies a prejudgment of the issue of Palestinian statehood despite the absence of any permanent status agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

In this context, Israel has consistently stressed that the creation of a Palestinian state could only be based on terms and conditions that address Israeli concerns.¹²

Consequently, the United States and Israel rejoining the organization and thereby indirectly acknowledging a Palestinian state sends the message to the Palestinians that they don’t have to fulfil their Oslo Accords obligation to negotiate with Israel to realize their ambitions, decreasing the likelihood of negotiations and consequently extending and exacerbating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Legally speaking, any Israeli and/or U.S. return to UNESCO and concomitant implied recognition of Palestine would bypass and violate the fundamental premise of the Oslo Accords which posited that the permanent status of the territory as well as resolution of controversial issues such as the status of Jerusalem, refugees, and settlements, would only be accomplished through negotiation between Israel and the PLO.

Whether such negotiations would result in the establishment of a Palestinian State or any other political framework such as a federation, confederation, or any other combination would be dependent on their outcome.¹³

Moreover, recognition of a Palestinian state before such entity meets the criteria of statehood would amount to premature recognition, which is also incompatible with international law.¹⁴

Above all, rejoining UNESCO would be interpreted by the Palestinians as a green light for continued involvement in terror and in the delegitimization of Israel including their encouragement and propagation of terrorism through their “Pay to Slay” policy, by transferring funds to Palestinians and their families who have carried out terrorist attacks against Israelis.¹⁵

In light of numerous reports and studies that have found that curricula and textbooks throughout Palestinian Authority-run educational institutions advocate and glorify terrorism and antisemitism,¹⁶ the granting de facto recognition of a Palestinian state without rectifying such problematic policies will be perceived by the Palestinian leadership as encouragement and sanction for such educational policies, without implementing reforms necessary to advance peace in the region.

Lastly, an American/Israeli return to UNESCO would set a toxic precedent for other international organizations and would inevitably serve as a precedent for accepting full state membership by the Palestinians in other UN agencies and bodies.

Politicization of UNESCO

Rejoining UNESCO would imply acceptance by the United States and Israel of the plethora of politically generated anti-Israel resolutions that have been adopted by various constituent bodies of UNESCO.

Indeed, as stressed by the NGO “UN Watch,” UNESCO passed a total of 47 resolutions between 2009-2014, 46 of which were directed against Israel and only one criticizing Syria.¹⁷ None of these resolutions made any reference to human rights, educational and cultural violations by the likes of North Korea, Iran, China, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, ISIS, or any of the other culturally destructive regimes in the world.

Consequently, rejoining UNESCO at this point would be considered to be sanctioning UNESCO’s own neglect of its functions and purposes, namely “the contribution to peace and security by promoting collaboration among the nations through education, science and culture” as set out in Article 1 of its Constitution.

Conclusion and Recommendations

It is patently clear that any U.S. intention to rejoin UNESCO and urge Israel to follow suit would be a remarkably poor and ill-advised idea and incompatible with declared policies. It would also undermine the basics of the agreed peace negotiation process to which the United States is a signatory.

Perhaps the only way in which Israel and the United States could possibly rejoin UNESCO without undermining their own legal, political, and moral principles and obligations would be pursuant to a resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on a permanent status agreement, the outcome of which would enable full membership in international organizations.

An alternative option would be that the appropriate bodies within UNESCO resolve to suspend Palestinian full membership status and resort to observer status, pending the outcome of the negotiation of a permanent status agreement with Israel that determines the status and governance of the territory.

Since the realization of these options appears to be highly unlikely in the prevailing circumstances, the U.S. Administration might prefer to reconsider its position on this issue, in accordance with its own declared policies of supporting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and postpone thoughts of returning to UNESCO prior to the achievement of a permanent status agreement.

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Notes