The US is obligated by law to stop funding any agency that grants membership to the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and the State Department announced this afternoon that it is ceasing its funding. The Obama administration will not make a $60 million payment planned for November, the Washington Post reports. The US provides about $80 million a year to UNESCO.
The law can be used to bar Washington from providing funding for any UN body that accepts members who don’t meet “internationally recognized attributes of statehood,” according to AP. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has called UNESCO's vote "inexplicable” because it will not fast-track Palestinian statehood.
The US boycotted UNESCO from 1984 to 2003 amid a "growing disparity between US foreign policy and UNESCO goals,” according to Agence France-Presse. However, in the news agency’s view, President Barack Obama “now considers UNESCO a strategic interest and Washington sees it as a useful multilateral way to spread certain Western values.”
The US was one of the 14 members to vote against Palestinian membership.
