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posted by cmn32480 on Monday October 23 2017, @01:54PM   Printer-friendly
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.
...
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.
...
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.
...
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."
...
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.
...
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."


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  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 24 2017, @02:02PM (3 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday October 24 2017, @02:02PM (#586852) Journal

    They should have carved it out of Germany. That would have been a just thing to do.

    But, really, why should the Jews have been the only group persecuted in the Holocaust to get a country of their own out of it? Why not the Gypsies? Those poor bastards have been kicked around for a long time, too, and they were slaughtered in the millions by the Nazis, too. How about homosexuals? The handicapped? All rounded up and liquidated by the Nazis, but none of them got homelands as compensation.

    I oppose ethno-states of any kind, but if they're gonna take a Nazi-like approach of separating people into different states by race and religion, etc., at least be consistent about it.

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  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday October 24 2017, @05:16PM (2 children)

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 24 2017, @05:16PM (#586946) Journal

    Nobody knows where the Gypsies came from. People think they know where the Israelis came from. That they're wrong doesn't enter into political calculations.

    The other groups that you mention aren't even ostensibly nationalities.

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    • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 24 2017, @06:37PM (1 child)

      by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday October 24 2017, @06:37PM (#586986)

      The Roma (called "Gypsies" by others, but never by themselves) came from the Indian subcontinent, probably somewhere near what is now the Punjab region. That has been determined by linguistic relationship between their language and Sanskrit, and also by genetic studies. So if we were going to do the same thing for the Roma that was done for the Jews, we would be giving them that area of India and Pakistan. This is something the Brits could have conceivably done, since that area was under British control at the time, but the Roma didn't have an equivalent of David ben Gurion agitating for a Roma homeland. And it's quite possible that there are more anti-Roma incidents in Europe these days than anti-Jewish incidents.

      Had the Brits given the Roma their homeland in Punjab, I have to guess that the people living in Punjab at the time would have been none too happy with that arrangement. India has been making some noises along the lines of making it easier for Roma to become Indian citizens if they want to.

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      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday October 25 2017, @12:46AM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 25 2017, @12:46AM (#587193) Journal

        Yes, there's a lot of evidence that the Romani have at least as much connection with somewhere around India as the Israelis have with Israel. But that all depends on how you figure connections. The Israeli were largely converted by government decree (and then refused to reconvert), and don't have much non-adopted connection (I'm talking about the ones that came from Russian controlled areas). The Romani, as far as I've ever heard, don't think of India as their homeland, even though many of their ancestors probably did come from there. So it's a very different kind of connection.

        That said, you're probably right about why the Israeli ended up in Israel and the Gypsies didn't end up in the Himalayas. But it wasn't all happenstance, and there's a reason the Israelis campaigned to end up in Israel and the Gypsies didn't campaign to end up in the Himalayas.

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