Winnipeg Jewish Review  
Site Search:
Home  |  Archives  |  Contact Us
 
Features Local Israel Next Generation Arts/Op-Eds Editorial/Letters Links Obituary/In Memoriam

John R. Bolton is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute

 
THE UNESCO FOLLIES ARE BACK

The Obama administration bungles the Palestinians’ membership vote.

by John Bolton,posted Nov 9, 2011

The Palestinian Authority succeeded last Monday in becoming a member state in the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The vote was 107 in favor, 14 opposed, and 52 abstaining, with France, Spain, Austria, and India among those supporting PA admission. Two of our closest allies, the United Kingdom and Japan, abstained. Because of a 1990 federal law, supplemented in 1994, the State Department announced a few hours after the vote that the United States was ceasing its contribution to UNESCO.
The applicable statute, proposed in 1989 by Senator Bob Kasten, was a corollary to President George H.W. Bush’s efforts to prevent the Palestine Liberation Organization (predecessor of the PA) from joining U.N. agencies including the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNESCO. Back then, the PLO was trying to create “facts on the ground” in the Middle East peace process by working the U.N.’s corridors. Because only states are eligible for membership in the U.N. system, becoming a member of U.N. bodies, in the PLO/PA’s idiosyncratic view, would prove it was a state and therefore equivalent to Israel.
Europeans in particular were reluctant to oppose the PLO. In part, they dismissed as pro forma the Bush administration’s warnings that Congress would retaliate financially if the PLO joined WHO; they assumed this stance was purely for domestic consumption, to appease “the Jewish lobby,” which Europeans believed in even before professors Walt and Mearsheimer unearthed it.

Read more click here: http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/unesco-follies-are-back_607777.html

 
<<Previous Article       Next Article >>
Subscribe to the Winnipeg Jewish Review
  • JNF Canada
  • D&L Landscaping and Concrete
  • Dove Electric
  • Munroe Pharmacy
  • Lipkin Family
  • Gislason Targownik Peters
  • Orthodox Union
  • Coughlin Insurance Brokers
  • Bridges for Peace
  • Taverna Rodos
  • Orthodox Union
  • Accurate Lawn & Garden
  • Artista Homes
  • Santa Lucia Pizza
  • Astroid Management Limited
  • Industrial Metals
  • Fetching Style
  • West Kildonan Auto Service
  • Josef Ryan
  • Ross Eadie
  • Preventative Health First
  • Fair Service
  • Nick's Inn
  • Red Top Drive Inn
  • Tradesman Mechanical
  • Cavalier Candies
  • Shoppers Drug Mart
  • Shoppers Drug Mart
  • Julia Penny
  • kristinas-greek
  • The Center for Near East Policy Research Ltd.
  • Sarel Canada
  • Roofco Winnipeg Roofing
  • Center for Near East Policy Research
  • Nachum Bedein
Rhonda Spivak, Editor

Publisher: Spivak's Jewish Review Ltd.


Opinions expressed in letters to the editor or articles by contributing writers are not necessarily endorsed by Winnipeg Jewish Review.