Politics

Junk Explained: Why Does It Matter That The US Just Withdrew From UNESCO?

It's a Definitely Important But Complicated Thing.

by Sam Langford  13 October 2017
unesco

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Overnight, the US formally announced that it will be withdrawing from UNESCO due to the the organisation’s “anti-Israel” bias.

If your eyes just glazed over, you’re not alone — the decision features a trifecta of Definitely Important But Complicated Things (the Israel-Palestine conflict, Trump’s foreign policy, and a UN agency acronym most of us would be pretty hard pressed to complete).

It’s worth being across it though, because it could have a pretty big impact on how the United Nations is able to maintain World Heritage Sites, run educational programs, and perform other critical work. Depending on how states respond, it could also have a pretty significant impact on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

We’ve stripped out the jargon for you to give you a sense of what’s going on. Why does it matter that the US just withdrew from UNESCO? Here’s what you need to know:

Remind Me What UNESCO IS, Please

You probably remember UNESCO from that primary school project where you painstakingly recreated one of the world’s natural wonders with papier-mâché. The acronym expands to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and it’s probably best known as the branch of the UN responsible for heritage listing stuff around the world. It also does a bunch of other stuff — its stated goal is to coordinate international cooperation in education, science, culture and communication.

It’s the heritage listing part of UNESCO that the US is objecting to here. To date, UNESCO has recognised three Palestinian world heritage sites — most recently, it recognised the old city of Hebron in the West Bank as a Palestinian heritage site in July. This pisses Israel off, because Israel does not recognise the sovereignty of Palestine, and has been continuing to build illegal settlements in Palestinian territory for years.

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Israel and its supporters are therefore not particularly pleased whenever countries do things that suggest that Palestine is a sovereign state. We’ve written about this before — there’s a good backgrounder here on Israel getting real mad at New Zealand for sponsoring a UN resolution declaring the construction of settlements on Palestinian territory illegal under international law.

There’s obviously much, much more complex history to the Israel-Palestine conflict, which we don’t have time to go into here. The basic thing you need to grasp is that Israel perceives anything recognising Palestine as anti-Israel, including UNESCO heritage listings.

What Does This Have To Do With The US?

The US has been a supporter of Israel for a while, providing financial support through foreign aid, and frequently using its veto power at the UN to block resolutions that would harm Israel.

Again, there’s complexity here that we’re skimming over — Barack Obama and others in the US have still frequently criticised Israel’s settler expansion, and expressed support for a two-state solution amenable to both Israel and Palestine (much, much easier said than done). Last year, rather than using its veto power again, the US abstained from voting on the UN resolution calling for Israel to halt the expansion of illegal settlements into Palestine, which allowed that resolution to pass.

At the time, Israel not happy with the US. Trump had just been elected though, and he’d pledged pretty clear support for Israel. Israel’s ambassador to the US tweeted this at the time:

Given Trump’s decidedly more pro-Israel stance, a move like withdrawing from UNESCO is not a surprise. The official statement also listed a number of other concerns, saying “this decision was not taken lightly, and reflects US concerns with mounting arrears at UNESCO, the need for fundamental reform in the organisation, and continuing anti-Israel bias at UNESCO”.

Those arrears are the US’s debt to UNESCO, which exists because the US stopped paying its membership dues in 2011 in another act in support of Israel (they were protesting UNESCO’s decision to add Palestine as a full member). Basically, the US wants to withdraw from UNESCO to support Israel, and also to cut costs they incurred by supporting Israel six years ago.

Israel, understandably, is pretty pleased with the US decision, calling it “brave and moral”, and signalling Israel’s intention to similarly withdraw in the near future.

As a final point here, it’s worth noting that this is not the first time the US has pulled out of UNESCO, despite being a founding member. It previously withdrew in 1984 for a whole host of reasons, and only rejoined in 2002.

Why Does This Matter?

Aside from being another sign that the Trump administration is following through on its pro-Israel commitment, the US withdrawal is really going to hurt UNESCO financially.

The organisation has been struggling financially for a while because of the US not paying its membership dues (at approximately US$70 million per year, they represented nearly a quarter of UNESCO’s operating budget). The US’s accumulated debt to UNESCO is over US$500 million now, and its withdrawal means its repayment of that debt will halt.

Supporters of Israel say this financial pressure is good, and will send a strong message to the UN. Others are very concerned that UNESCO won’t have enough money to do its job.

UNESCO itself has released a statement expressing disappointment in the US decision.

“The rise of violent extremism and terrorism calls for new long term responses for peace and security — to counter racism and anti-Semitism, to fight ignorance and discrimination,” UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova said.

“It is deeply regrettable for the US to withdraw from UNESCO, the UN agency promoting education for peace and protecting culture.”

As for whether UNESCO members will change their stance on Palestine or make do without the US, we’ll find out in coming months.

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Sam Langford is Junkee’s Staff Writer. She tweets at @_slangers.