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UNESCO approves Palestinian membership bid
UN cultural body admits Palestine as full member despite US threat to cut off tens of millions of dollars in funding.
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) voted on Monday to admit Palestine as a member, a move which will likely cause the US government to cut off tens of millions of dollars in annual funding.
The Palestinian bid received 107 yes votes, while 14 countries voted against and 52 others abstained. (EPA) The Palestinian bid received 107 "yes" votes during a UNESCO meeting in Paris, with 14 countries voting against and 52 abstaining, enough to satisfy a two-thirds majority of those countries present and voting.
The decision grants full membership to Palestine, which allows them to register certain sites, like the Church of the Nativity, in UNESCO's World Heritage register.
It is a small victory for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which filed a bid last month for full membership at the United Nations. The bid has been stalled for weeks at the UN Security Council, and will likely face a US veto when it comes to a vote.
Still, the "yes" vote at UNESCO will add at least symbolic weight to the PLO's argument that the UN should recognise a Palestinian state.
"It's good news. It's another step in the right direction," said Husam Zomlot, a PLO member and former ambassador. "We're marching towards full status in the international system. UNESCO is a very important organisation."
Israel was quick to criticise the decision: Nimrod Barkan, the Israeli representative to UNESCO, called the vote "tragic for the idea of UNESCO."
A US funding cut?
Israel, not surprisingly, voted against the measure, as did the United States, Canada and several European countries, including Germany. The United Kingdom abstained, while France voted in favour.
Mouin Rabbani, an analyst at the Institute for Palestinian Studies in Amman, said the vote would nonetheless make it harder for those countries to oppose Palestinian efforts to be recognised.
"What they're doing is developing leverage over the Americans, the Europeans, the Israelis, so these parties begin to take them more seriously," Rabbani said.
The vote will almost certainly trigger a US law, passed in 1990, which bars the US from funding any United Nations agency "which accords the Palestine Liberation Organisation the same standing as member states." The US provides about $80 million per year, or 22 per cent of the agency's total budget.
David Killion, the US representative at UNESCO, said the decision would "complicate our ability to support UNESCO," and reiterated the Obama adminstration's past criticism of Palestinian bids for UN recognition.
"The only way forward to the Palestinian state we seek is through negotiations," Killion said. "We believe efforts such as what we have seen today are counterproductive."
The president can often override such laws with a so-called "national security waiver"; these waivers allow the PLO to maintain a mission in Washington, for example, despite a 1987 law barring it.
But the 1990 law on UN funding, and a similar measure passed in 1994, do not provide the option of a waiver.
Victoria Nuland, a spokeswoman for the State Department, would not say whether the US was pressuring Congress to issue such a waiver.
"We are not going to create a Palestinian state at UNESCO," Nuland said last week. "There are consequences if UNESCO votes in this direction."
The European Union tried to stop the PLO bid by offering them limited membership on UNESCO's executive committee, and funds to renovate the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, believed to be the birthplace of Jesus.
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25 Comments so far
Show AllGood for UNESCO. Finally a group with a conscience. 22% is not as much of an austerity cut as Greece faces. And at least they can still look at themselves in the mirror. Money isn't everything. I personally think morals and ethics have more value.
And a bribe or leverage based on the rennovation of the Church of the Nativity and Jesus? Excuse me if I find that more than slightly distasteful and completely inappropriate. Lobbyist of all stripes and ilks appear to have no depth of depravity. This from the European Union the folks that are selling off and privatizing most of Europe. Rennovating "Jesus's" birthplace while dismantling civil safety nets, governments and socialized medicine in order to keep the Palestinians caged under Israel's thumb.
What exactly does the European Union hope to gain from keeping the Palestinians captive and subservient and from whom do they hope to gain? How much is the captivity of a race or class of people worth? What were Rachel Corrie and Furkan Dogan's lives worth? New stucco on the Church of the Nativity?
The French got a warm applause when its representative voted yes. They must have remembered the German occupation of WW2!
That's much too generous. More likely it's a cheap gesture meant to curry favor with the Arab World after their eager participation (on behalf of the French oil firm Total) in the Most Excellent Libyan Adventure . . . and we don't want anyone thinking of how the French treated "their" Algerians, now, do we? In short, the French did the right thing by sheer coincidence.
Now let's see the companies of which countries had the largest production of crude in Libya before the war. Germany (no), Italy (abstained), France (yes), Hungary (abstained), US (no), UK (abstained).
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Notes: It is indeed a German-based oil company that produced the largest volume of crude in Libya last year. The US has long been represented by Occidental Petroleum but EXXON and the British BP had recently signed contracts with Gadaffi. This is such a mixed bunch that I can hardly find a common trend such as brown-nosing the Arab nations for oil. Did France have a hidden agenda? Of course it did but I am not so sure what it is. Take a look at the "European votes". France may have attempted to isolate Germany in the corner of the truculent.
I doubt it. France and Germany are too much peas in the same pod these days. More likely is that Germany is still donning its Ceremonial Sackcloth and dares not vote anti-Zionist. And anyway, you cite the major players in Libya prior to Gaddafi's overthrow. More important is who will be the major players *now.* And for that, I'm more than confident that this most recent pay-to-play war will yield spoils in ratios approximating the white-man burdens borne by the various aggressors.
The French are just being clever. Earlier in the month (October 2011, that is), the French HAD abstained on voting on this very same issue at the UNESCO executive committee meeting.
According to AFP – 5 Oct, 2011,
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"Earlier in the day France, which abstained on the motion, said "it was not the time" for Palestine to pursue UNESCO backing, calling instead for a return to talks with Israel on a final peace settlement.
France has proposed a compromise measure whereby Palestine would be granted the status of an "observer state" at UN headquarters in New York."
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I don't think France deserved the applause for acting clever at the last minute.
This is a good first step in refusing to tow the American-Israeli ideology of permanant war and occupation. The world must stand up to these warmongering bullies.
Wonderful news! Good for UNESCO! Let's hope (how I've learned to hate that word!) that this recognition willcreate some balance in the ME. As far as the cut-off of funds is concerned-what difference will it make, as the US never pays its dues anyway. Typical-wanting to dominate the situation and not paying for it.
Canada's vote against Palestine is yet another example of why the current Canadian government is such an embarrassment to me. Harper and his neo-con "Cristian" regime are proceeding apace with the subjugation of Canada's politics and economy to the American hegemony. Any defense of Canada's interests and decent behaviour on the world stage is denounced as "blind anti-Americanism", as if that were somehow a bad thing.
Looking respectable on the world's stage while sniffing the elephant's ass is becoming a tough job..Oh where is the Canada I knew!
That accusation of "blind antiamericanism" smells just like the knee-jerk charge of "antisemitism" at every turn. I agree with you 100%-this Harper is such an embarrassment to Canada. He and his policies make me quite ill.
Wake me when a majority of voting Canadians find him embarrassing.
And the funny thing is Stephen Harper has come out in support of Quebec's bid for "associate member" status at the UNESCO. That is, Quebec, all by itself, would be an associate member, in addition to Canada as a full member. And the Harper government voted against Palestinian membership!
Thank you UNESCO for voting to admit Palestine as a state. How the U.S. with a straight face can pass and support laws barring the self determination of a people with the rationalization that it in their own interest is ludicrous. Heavy handed efforts to bully other countries is transparent. If the U.S. isn't sufficiently embarrassed with the hypocrisy of its foreign policy toward the Palestinians, I hope others will step forward to replace the missing funds for UNESCO.
Israel wrote the software's secret codes that "protects" the US defense network... including NSA.
I wonder how you program that in Hebrew? I can't make a decent web page.
So the Cold War is not over because I can't go to Cuba freely and start a real discovery of why I am not allowed when the only 2 countries in the world that voted against the end of the golden year Cuban Imbargo which would be a boom to the economies of Florida and Cuba is the US/Israel axis. A whole lot of folks think they are evil.... If you call a world wide network of super rich Defense, oil and financial interlocking corporate mutual interests to make as much as fast can with the media owned as well as the governments, "EVIL"... be my guest.
The US/Israel axis is the Evil Empire of my really real world.
It's all about WAR. A class war on the people including War on Drugs and War on Moslems in the name of preventing terrorism here by losing our ass over there.
So I say to our War Machine Masters, don't block a free Palestine anymore, Do something for the poor and the future.
End the Cold, Drug, Moslem War on the poor and the world will fuckin Love you.... if ya need some.
Shalom Already
There are so many historical and cultural sites in Palestine. Congratulations to them and to UNESCO for taking this step. Hopefully, some funding can flow to preserve our shared history.
Because US,I mean the people who run it, are the very antithesis of humanity.
"The only way forward to the Palestinian state we seek is through negotiations," Killion said. "We believe efforts such as what we have seen today are counterproductive."
WHAT negotiations? Israel refuses to negotiate. ANY efforts that move the process forward are productive. David Killion can go f**k himself.
Yes, the Church of the Nativity could not be a World Heritage Site because of Israel and its sycophantic Western allies. Instead, they rather say F-U to Baby Jesus.
For one second I was shocked when I read that The Netherlands had also voted no. Then I realized that its government depends on the support of the neo-Nazi Wilders. I finally obtained a list of the no, abstain, and yes. With some exceptions the split is essentially between the former colonialists and current neo-colonialists on the no and abstain list against the former colonial or otherwise abused nations on the yes list. The courageous European "yes" countries are Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain. Of these only Belgium, France, and Spain can be counted as former colonialist states. Also, with the exceptions of Finland, Ireland, and Spain these countries were attacked and occupied by Nazi Germany during WW2. Austria is a case of not occupied but annexed. Some parts of Ireland were actually bombed by the Luftwaffe. Is that irrelevant? I think not. The German no vote means that the Holocaust trumped the killing by the Nazis of far more non-Jewish defenseless civilians than Jews. Anyway, the "coalition of the willing", the nay's, contain such luminaries as Lithuania, Palau, Panama, Samoa, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. This time the Obama administration has managed to make us the laughing stock, the village idiot of the world.
Our Overlords are just cutting the money as punishment for defying the Empire. They are not sending in the Drones, just yet. Move down to the sub-basements, UNESCO...
How much will it cost US taxpayers to pay off those who abstained or who voted no?
Cheers, cheers, cheers!
Maybe if the United States had kept its nose out of the Middle East originally to begin with, the two-state solution would be in place right now.