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from the tactical-advance-away-from-them dept.
The Guardian, The New York Times, Al-Jazeera over the decision of USA and Israel to withdraw from UNESCO over 'anti-Israel bias'
The Guardian
The United States has formally notified the UN's world heritage body Unesco that it is withdrawing its membership of the organisation citing "continuing anti-Israel bias".
The announcement by the Trump administration was followed a few hours later by news that Israel was also planning to quit the financially struggling cultural and educational agency.
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The body is best known for its world heritage listings of outstanding cultural and natural sites but has often drawn the ire of Israel and the Trump administration for a series of decisions, including the listing of Hebron, a city in the southern part of the occupied Palestinian territories, as a Palestinian world heritage site.
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Disclosing the US government's decision, the state department said in a statement it would seek to "remain engaged ... as a non-member observer state in order to contribute US views, perspectives and expertise".The statement added: "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," the US state department said. The withdrawal will take effect on 31 December 2018.
The New York Times
The administration also cited mounting arrears at the organization as a reason for the decision.
"We were in arrears to the tune of $550 million or so, and so the question is, do we want to pay that money?" Heather Nauert, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said Thursday at a news briefing. She added, "With this anti-Israel bias that's long documented on the part of Unesco, that needs to come to an end."
...Cultural organizations in the United States criticized the decision, saying Unesco played a key role in preserving vital cultural heritage worldwide.
"Although Unesco may be an imperfect organization, it has been an important leader and steadfast partner in this crucial work," said Daniel H. Weiss, the president and chief executive of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
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Analysts said that withdrawing from the organization was a significant escalation by the United States in its criticism of United Nations bodies."This is another example of the Trump's administration's profound ambivalence and concern about the way the U.N. is structured and behaves," said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator and adviser in Republican and Democratic administrations.
In July, Unesco declared the ancient and hotly contested core of Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as a Palestinian World Heritage site in danger, a decision sharply criticized by Israel and its allies. And in 2015, Unesco adopted a resolution that criticized Israel for mishandling heritage sites in Jerusalem and condemned "Israeli aggressions and illegal measures against freedom of worship."
Al-Jazeera
In a statement announcing its withdrawal, Israel called the US administration's decision "courageous and moral", and accused UNESCO of becoming a "theatre of the absurd".
"The prime minister instructed the foreign ministry to prepare Israel's withdrawal from the organisation alongside the United States," Benjamin Netayanu's office said in a statement.
...Thursday's development demonstrates the US administration's "complete and total bias" towards Israel, says Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, a political party comprising mostly secular intellectuals.
"This behaviour is counterproductive and shameful," he told Al Jazeera by phone. "Sooner or later they will see Palestine in every UN agency. Will the US respond to that by withdrawing from the WHO or the World Intellectual Property Organization? They will be hurting only themselves."
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Russia's foreign ministry said it regreted the decision, adding that the move would disrupt a number of important projects planned by UNESCO."We share the concern by many countries that the activity of UNESCO has been too politicised lately," the ministry said in a statement.
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Barghouti, of the Palestinian National Initiative, said it is "as if Israel is dictating US policy not only in the Middle East but also in international organisations."This is going to have a very harmful effect on the idea of the US being a mediator between the Palestinians and the Israelis."
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday October 23 2017, @10:07PM (10 children)
Israel is recognized as a Jewish nation. So far, so good. And the UN did approve of the partition plan in 1947.
The trouble with your argument is, well, everything else:
1. Hebron lies outside of the Israeli portion of the partition plan from 1947. They wouldn't take control of it until 1967.
2. Israel violated the partition plan almost immediately, taking over significant territory that had been designated by the UN as Arab, and also taking over most of Jerusalem (which was supposed to be a city-state separate from both Israeli and Arab control).
3. The only reason that Israel has not been the subject of numerous UN condemnations is that the USA vetoes those condemnations in the Security Council. Clinging to UN resolutions as justification for why Israel is in the right here is disingenuous at best.
4. The settling of Israeli civilians in what had been outside of Israel is expressly forbidden by the Geneva Conventions. Those clauses were created specifically to stop somebody from having the bright idea of trying to create lebensraum via warfare. And yes, I'm drawing an equivalence between what Israel is doing now what the Nazis did to the Czechs and Poles in the late 1930's.
5. Hebron's historical and religious significance predates all of this by millenia. Hebron is a major religious site for Jews, and one of the 4 holy cities of Islam (the other 3 are Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem), mostly due to its association with the Biblical figure Abraham.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Troll) by RamiK on Tuesday October 24 2017, @03:25AM (3 children)
By violated almost immediately, don't you mean got attacked by all the nations surrounding it in violation of the very same UN decision that you're defending and ended up with more territories then Israel was designated for? Moreover, are you seriously suggesting the world should send the message that whenever a UN resolution passes, it's OK to try and force a different result by genociding your neighbors since, worse case scenario, the same resolution will still apply and you won't end up worse off than when you started?
3. The only reason those condemnations ever got a majority was with the knowledge that the US will veto them regardless making them a good way to placate the oil-providing Arab nations over the UN unwillingness to actually its decisions in the region.
4. The Geneva conventions is a fine legal document that was signed between fine nations that largely ignored it as soon as war broke out.
5. See my other post. But also, there's historical and religious significance to every pile of rubble in the region so I'm not sure what "one of the 4 holy cities of Islam" suggests. I'm pretty sure even if those cities were under Muslim governance, the Caliphate would still be required to expand under every interpretation of Sharia law I've read. So, I really don't see how any of this leads to peace in the middle east.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @09:10AM
No. Violating it means occupying it for 50+ years and de-facto annexing it.
I will not even raise the problems of Israel's ethnic cleansing of Arab populations few decades ago, or current policy of forcing Arab populations into ever smaller areas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ethnic_Cleansing_of_Palestine [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 24 2017, @01:51PM (1 child)
Oh yes, because the Zionist terrorists in Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi hadn't engaged in many decades of a terror campaign to force that UN resolution as a way to settle the sitation they inflamed. (as an aside: the PLA picked up their playbook of using terror to achieve a homeland because it had worked so fantastically well for the Zionists.) The poor, poor Zionist terrorists, such victims of their horrible mean neighbors for retaliating against decades of Jewish terrorism, right? They are such innocent victims.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Troll) by RamiK on Tuesday October 24 2017, @07:43PM
Following https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionist_political_violence#Condemnation_as_terrorism [wikipedia.org] , Irgun was the only organization involved in terrorism - as in attack on civilian targets. And if playing the blame game, Irgun was a reactionary group breaking off from the Haganah over Haganah's refusal to attack civilians after a series of Palestinian attacks on Jewish civilians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun [wikipedia.org] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots [wikipedia.org]
compiling...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 24 2017, @01:44PM (5 children)
Why isn't this problematic for anyone else? It's a "Jewish" nation? How does it sound if we declare Britain to be a "white" nation? Why does the former sound OK to some people, but the latter does not? Let's formally and openly change immigration policy in the United States to give all white Christians a free pass to instant citizenship. Everyone OK with that, too? Because that's what Israel does for Jews.
Israel is a country expressly built on a foundation of toxic bigotry. No civilized country, no democracy, ought to have anything to do with them. How telling is it that they were best buds with South Africa under apartheid? (they developed their nuclear program jointly with that country)
They're a brain slug on the USA.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 24 2017, @02:27PM (4 children)
The UK is actually officially an Anglican nation. The Archbishop of Canterbury has an official (although largely symbolic) position in the British government, and they receive a bit of government money. A number of other countries have similar kinds of relationships with the Catholic Church.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 24 2017, @02:48PM (3 children)
OK. If that's the norm then why did everybody get so upset when George W. Bush called America a "Christian nation?" Why do they pan David Duke when he asserts America for white people? Is it only bad if they say things like that in America, but perfectly normal and acceptable elsewhere? Why the double standard?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Tuesday October 24 2017, @04:47PM (1 child)
Because America is supposed to be better, not an ethnic state, but a land where all can come live according to the ideals it was founded on; Liberty, justice, and freedom for all.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 24 2017, @06:37PM
Right. I agree.
So why do we support an ethnic, apartheid state like Israel but we didn't support the country that invented the word "apartheid?" Why did we demonize the Serbs for ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia when we apparently are just fine and dandy with the Israelis doing it to the Palestinians? Because reasons?
Why are we at the brink of war with North Korea for illegally acquiring nuclear weapons, but look the other way on Israel's? North Korea hasn't invaded or attacked anyone since the armistice 50 years ago, but in that span of time Israel has actually invaded its neighbors, what, at least 3 times? Why aren't we mobilizing our forces to kick Israel's ass for doing what Saddam did to Kuwait? Lemme guess--once again, because reasons?
An America that was truly about liberty, justice, and freedom for all would have squashed Israel like a bug a long time ago.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 24 2017, @06:11PM
Because the United States has as one of its founding principles that we specifically don't have an official national religion. George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson were all extremely clear on that point, repeatedly. And if you're really unclear on why it would be a problem, replace the word "Christian" with the word "Muslim" and tell me whether everybody is still basically OK with it.
Also, in many of those countries I mentioned, the governments have signed on to the European Convention of Human Rights, which provides the equivalent to the Free Exercise Clause in Article 9, and are steadily loosening the relationships between the church and state. For example, in the UK, the Archbishop of Canterbury's only duties related to the government involve performing ceremonies for the royal family, and advising the Queen if she asks him to.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.