U.S. cuts UNESCO funds over Palestine vote

The board of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization voted yesterday to admit Palestine into the organization as its newest member, and the United States promptly responded by cutting off funding for the agency.

Acting under a legal requirement to cut U.S. funds to any UN agency that recognizes a Palestinian state, the State Department announced that the United States has stopped funding UNESCO because of the vote. Department spokesman Victoria Nuland told reporters that the Obama administration would not make a planned $60 million payment to the agency due this month.

The UNESCO vote follows a stalled effort by the Palestinians to seek recognition as a UN member state. It signaled that the Palestinians intend to pursue membership in a number of UN specialized agencies, which have their own rules for membership and where the United States does not have veto power.

U.S. and Israeli officials said the Palestinian membership bid would roil a U.S.-backed effort to restart a stalled peace process. The Palestinians maintain that they are prepared to return to talks if certain conditions are met, including a halt to Israel's expansion of settlements, and that they have every right to pursue membership at the United Nations.

The UNESCO membership bid easily passed, 107-14, with 52 abstentions. It opens the door for the Palestinians also to gain membership in the World Intellectual Property Organization, the UN Industrial Development Organization and the UN Conference on Trade and Development.

But the board's decision also triggered a pair of U.S. laws from the early 1990s that prohibit the United States from funding UN agencies that recognize the Palestinians.

The United States provides UNESCO with more than $80 million a year, covering about 22 percent of its budget and making any cutoff painful.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said she fully supports a cutoff of aid as mandated under U.S. law.

"Today's reckless action by UNESCO is anti-Israel and anti-peace," she said in a statement.