{"id":12331,"date":"2012-02-21T11:12:01","date_gmt":"2012-02-21T16:12:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=12331"},"modified":"2012-02-21T11:17:45","modified_gmt":"2012-02-21T16:17:45","slug":"under-the-radar-in-unesco-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=12331","title":{"rendered":"Under The Radar In UNESCO Funding"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scott Johnson at Power Line<\/a>\u00a0posted an article today about John Bolton’s book Surrender Is Not An Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad<\/em><\/a>. In the book, John Bolton tells the story of the PLO’s efforts to be recognized by the United Nations without negotiating with Israel.<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

In early 1989, Bolton writes, the PLO had launched a major effort to join several specialized UN agencies in the UN system. \u2014 \u201cyet another example of the PLO\u2019s perennial strategy to improve its position vis-a-vis Israel by doing anything other than negotiating directly with the Israelis.\u201d The PLO membership campaign followed from the PLO\u2019s 1988 decision to change its name card at the UN from \u201cPalestine Liberation Organization\u201d to \u201cPalestine\u201d \u2014 \u201capparently under the theory that if you sound more like a country than an organization, people will treat you more like a country.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The next logical step, Bolton reports, was to have \u201cPalestine\u201d become a member of the various UN agencies, thus further attesting to its status as a \u201cstate\u201d in international circles in that membership in the organizations is limited to states. How could the United States effectively opposed the PLO\u2019s charade given the PLO\u2019s wide support at the UN?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first targets of the PLO were the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The United States countered that move by telling the\u00a0WHO that the United States would withhold funding if Palestine was admitted. We had already withdrawn from UNESCO, but stated that we would not rejoin if Palestine was admitted. In 1990, Congress passed a law requiring the termination of United States funding of any international organization that recognizes Palestinian statehood in the absence of a peace agreement with Israel.<\/p>\n

Based on that law, we withdrew funding of UNESCO last year when Palestine was admitted. Unfortunately, President Obama has overturned that withdrawal.\u00a0 The article reports:<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not the end of the story. JTA reports<\/a>: \u201cThe Obama administration formally announced its intention to ask Congress to waive a ban on funding UNESCO over its recognition of Palestinian statehood.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s not all! The Obama administration courageously buried announcement of its intention in a footnote to the budget that the White House submitted to Congress this month.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Will Congress restore funding? That\u2019s not entirely clear<\/a>, but not if Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has anything to do with it. \u201cAny effort to walk back this funding cutoff will pave the way for the Palestinian leadership\u2019s unilateral statehood scheme to drive on, and sends a disastrous message that the U.S. will fund UN bodies no matter what irresponsible decisions they make,\u201d she said in a statement. The Bolton spirit lives on, if not in the Obama administration.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The President needs to follow the law as it was passed in 1990.<\/p>\n

\"Enhanced<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott Johnson at Power Line\u00a0posted an article today about John Bolton’s book Surrender Is Not An Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad. In the book, John Bolton tells the story of the PLO’s efforts to be recognized … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[873,86,537,2214,1054,223,285,2213],"class_list":["post-12331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ileana-ros-lehtinen","tag-israel","tag-palestine","tag-plo","tag-unesco","tag-united-nations","tag-united-states","tag-world-health-organization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12331"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12334,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12331\/revisions\/12334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}