US and Israel quit over UNESCO's love affair with "Palestine"

[Published 7 January 2019]

UNESCO’s decision to admit “Palestine” as a member state in 2011 in breach of UNESCO’s own Constitution has come back to bite UNESCO with a vengeance — with America and Israel both quitting their membership of UNESCO on 31 December 2018.

America’s designated funding of 22% of UNESCO’s annual budget will now have to be met by other member states or UNESCO’s programs severely curtailed.

In October 2017, State Department spokesperson (now UN Ambassador-elect) Heather Nauert, clarified that America’s decision had not been taken lightly - citing continuing anti-Israel bias at UNESCO and the need for fundamental reform in the organization.

UNESCO anti-Israel decisions since “Palestine” was admitted to UNESCO membership have included:

1. 2012 — 8 resolutions condemning Israel, 1 condemning Syria and 0 other countries.

2. 2013 - 6 condemning Israel and 0 other countries

3. January 2014 — Cancelling an exhibition at UNESCO’s Paris headquarters on the Jewish presence in the land of Israel

4. October 2016 - Disregarding any Jewish ties to the Temple Mount - only referring to it by its Muslim names — then several weeks later - passing a softer version of the resolution that referred to the Western Wall by its Jewish name - though still ignoring Judaism’s ties to the site.

5. July 2017 - Designating Hebron and the two adjoined shrines at its heart — the Jewish Tomb of the Patriarchs and the Muslim Ibrahimi Mosque — as a “Palestinian World Heritage Site in Danger”.

UNESCO’s admission of “Palestine” to membership breached Article II (2) of UNESCO’s Constitution which only allows States to be admitted to UNESCO. “Palestine” was not a state under the criteria laid down under international law by the 1933 Montevideo Convention.

107 states voted to admit “Palestine” whilst the remaining 86 voted “No”, “abstained” or “did not vote”.

UNESCO’s legally questionable decision was never referred by UNESCO to the International Court of Justice or an arbitral tribunal for confirmation under Article XIV (2) of UNESCO’s Constitution.

Given what has transpired — such failure was a monumental misjudgment.

President Trump’s National Security Adviser - John Bolton - recently exposed the fiction that there is a legally-constituted entity called “Palestine”:

”[Palestine] is not a state… It does not meet the customary international law test of statehood. It doesn’t control defined boundaries. It doesn’t fulfill the normal functions of government…calling it the so-called ‘State of Palestine’ defines exactly what it has been —a position that the United States government has pursued uniformly since 1988 when the ‘Palestinian’ Authority declared itself to be the state of ‘Palestine.’ We don’t recognize it as the state of ‘Palestine.’ We have consistently across Democratic and Republican administrations opposed the admission of ‘Palestine’ to the United Nations as a state, because it’s not a state.”

Australia’s Head of Mission — Ms Gita Kamath — gave Australia’s reasons for its negative vote on admitting “Palestine” at the time of the 2011 UNESCO vote:

“Our decision to vote against reflects Australia’s strong concern that consideration of Palestinian membership in UNESCO is premature. The matter of Palestinian membership of the UN has recently been placed before the UN Security Council for its consideration. We should allow the United Nations Security Council process to run its course rather than seek first to address this question in different UN fora. Our decision also reflects our concerns with the possible implications of a successful vote on UNESCO funding.”

The Security Council course is still being run in 2019 with the finishing line nowhere in sight and UNESCO’s funding in tatters.

UNESCO’s credibility, integrity and self-created fantasy dream world has imploded.

UNESCO’s seven-year love affair with a non-existent “Palestine” has produced an international humanitarian crisis.

Author’s note: The cartoon—commissioned exclusively for this article—is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”- one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators—whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog

Palestine - Jordan Not Jumping For Joy

[Published 10 February 2014]


Jordan is becoming increasingly unhappy at the role US Secretary of State John Kerry might be planning for it in his eagerly anticipated framework agreement designed to end the 130 years old Jewish-Arab conflict.

The Jordan Times reported on 28 January:

“Figures representing professional unions and political parties are planning to hold a national conference to “protect Jordan and Palestine and repulse Kerry’s peace plan”. And a number of lawmakers signed a memorandum to convene a special Lower House session to discuss Kerry’s controversial proposals.

Jordan’s main opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, issued a communiqué last week warning of an impending plan to liquidate the Palestinian cause, which, it said, threatens both Jordanians and Palestinians.

It said that the current regional situation will encourage the US and Israel to impose their conditions on the Palestinians and put pressure on Jordan.

One Islamist leader, Salem Al Falahat, told a local news website that while detailed information on Kerry’s proposals is scarce, it is clear that current negotiations will not serve the interests of Palestinians or Jordanians.”

Jordan’s central role in bringing Kerry’s push for peace to fruition arises from the following facts:

1. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Charter claims that “Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.”
2. Jordan and Israel are the two successor States to the British Mandate—Jordan exercising sovereignty in 78% of the territory covered by the Mandate - and Israel in a further 17%.
3. Stuck between them is the West Bank—4% of the Mandate territory—which was:

(i) conquered and occupied by Transjordan in 1948 after having being called “Judea and Samaria” from biblical times until United Nations Resolution 181 (II) in 1947
(ii) then renamed “the West Bank” after being unified with Transjordan in 1950 to create a new territorial entity renamed “Jordan”
(iii)lost to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.

“West Bank” Arabs became “Jordanians” with Jordanian citizenship and passports between 1950 and 1988.

Abu Iyad—deputy chief and head of intelligence for the PLO - ranking second after Yasser Arafat in Fatah - the major faction within the PLO—told the Kuwaiti News Agency on 15 December 1989:

“You cannot make a distinction between a Jordanian and a Palestinian. It is true that we encourage unity between Arab peoples, but the relationship between Jordan and Palestine in particular is clearly distinctive; all those who tried in the past and are still trying to create divisions between the Jordanian and Palestinian people have failed. We indeed constitute one people…When the Palestinian state and unity is established…the Jordanian will be a Palestinian and the Palestinian a Jordanian”

Jordan’s Prince Hassan Bin Talal - an uncle of Jordan’s current King Abdullah II—succinctly summed up Jordan’s pivotal position in 1982:

“Small as Jordan is, our country is politically, socially, economically, militarily and historically inseparable from the Palestinian issue.”

Small as Jordan might be — Israel is much smaller - fitting into Jordan almost five times.

Jordan’s land mass could help resolve two thorny issues by:

1. Making land grants to the PLO to compensate it for land retained by Israel in the West Bank
2. Assisting in resettling Palestinian Arab refugees from other Arab countries.

Kerry’s predecessor — Condoleezza Rice - had envisaged Jordan’s involvement in the long running negotiations — as the following extract from the WikiLeaks Palestine Papers makes clear:

“... negotiators tried to resolve disagreements by offering in earnest what, to some, might sound like outlandish suggestions. Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was the source of one such proposal during a meeting on July 30, 2008 at the State Department. Rice kicked off the session by asking for a progress report on the points of agreement between the parties. After a quick update from Qurei and Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni, the latter said that some major decisions had not been reached as far as how a future state of Palestine would look. “We need to know how it is going to work,” she said, “The Airport and Seaport.”

Addressing the Palestinians, Rice then dropped this bombshell: “[Y]our airspace is so small - put it in Jordan.” The Palestinian negotiators appeared shocked at the suggestion that they use a sovereign country’s airspace as their own. Just under Rice’s comment, the Palestinian note taker wrote in brackets: “Discussion on whether this is a joke or a real option. Tzipi Livni and Condoleezza Rice clearly think it is realistic as an option.”

Jordan’s likely inclusion in Kerry’s framework agreement has been raised by US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki and Jordan’s Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh in Lebanon’s Daily Star:

“... the only goal of the final status agreement is to bring peace and prosperity to not only the Israeli and the Palestinian people, but to the region,” adding that “throughout every point in the process the United States has been engaged in consultations with the government of Jordan.”

“Seeking to allay parliamentary fears, Judeh told lawmakers that Jordan, which shares the longest Arab border of 335 kilometers with Israel and the West Bank, had the right to “accept or reject” any point in the negotiations that does not bode well with its interests.”

Kerry appears to understand that Jordan — an integral part of the Jewish-Arab conflict since 1920 - is the lynch pin to achieving any solution.

Jordan is not jumping for joy at the prospect.