US cuts UNESCO funding after Palestinian vote

David Killion, center, permanent delegate of the United States to UNESCO, reacts as delegates vote on Palestinian membership to the UN cultural agency in Paris

UNESCO gives Palestinians full membership

The United Nations’ cultural agency decided today to give the Palestinians full membership of the body, a vote that will boost their bid for recognition as a state at the United Nations.

UNESCO is the first UN agency the Palestinians have joined as a full member since President Mahmoud Abbas applied for full membership of the United Nations on September 23.

The United States, Canada, Germany and Holland voted against Palestinian membership. Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa and France voted in favour. Britain and Italy abstained.

Washington is likely to cut funding to UNESCO over the vote.




“The action today will complicate our ability to support UNESCO,” David T. Killion, US ambassador to UNESCO, told journalists after the vote.

“The US has been clear for the need of a two-state resolution, but the only path is through direct negotiations and there are no shortcuts, and initiatives like today are counterproductive.”

The vote highlighted divisions over foreign policy within the European Union, some of whose 27 members voted for and some against Palestinian membership.

Austrian UNESCO ambassador Ursula Plassnik, whose country voted in favour, said she regretted the European Union could not arrive at a common position on the Palestinian issue.

The Palestinians obtained backing from two thirds of UNESCO’s members to become the 195th member of UNESCO, with status as “an observer entity”. Of 173 countries that voted from a possible 185, 107 voted in favour, 14 voted against, 52 abstained and 12 were absent.

Forty representatives of the 58-member board has voted in favour of putting the matter to a vote earlier this month, with four ― the United States, Germany, Romania and Latvia ― voting against and 14 abstaining.

Admission will be seen by the Palestinians as a moral victory in their bid for full UN membership but could be costly for UNESCO.

US legislation stipulates that it can cut off funding to any UN agency that grants full membership to Palestinians.

Israel called the vote a “tragedy”.

“This resolution is a tragedy for UNESCO...UNESCO deals in science and not science fiction and nevertheless (UNESCO) adopted the science fiction reality,” said Nimrod Barkan, Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO.

Israel has said the Palestinian bid would amount to politicisation of the agency that would undermine its ability to carry out its mandate.

Obama eases Israeli anger on Mideast peace vision

President Barack Obama takes the stage to deliver remarks to delegates at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference in Washington, May 22, 2011.

President Barack Obama yesterday eased Israeli anger over his new Middle East peace proposals when he made clear that the Jewish state would likely be able to negotiate keeping some settlements in any final deal with the Palestinians.

Obama repeated his view that long-stalled peace talks should start on the basis of the Israel’s 1967 borders, an assertion that had infuriated Israeli leaders, exposed a rift between the two allies and raised further doubts about peace prospects.



But Obama’s speech to Washington’s most powerful pro-Israel lobbying group yesterday seemed to soothe some tensions over Obama’s endorsement three days earlier of a longstanding Palestinian demand on the borders of their future state.

Obama stressed that he expected the two sides to eventually reach an accord that included land swaps that would take into account the “new demographic realities on the ground,” signalling that Israel should be allowed to keep some Jewish settlements built on occupied land.

The speech to Israel’s staunchest US supporters followed a testy encounter at the White House on Friday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stunned his hosts by warning Obama against seeking peace “based on illusions” as he vowed Israel would never pull back to old borders he regarded as “indefensible”.

But the right-wing Israeli leader quickly expressed his appreciation for Obama’s remarks yesterday, saying in a statement, “I am determined to work together with President Obama to find ways to resume the peace negotiations.”

It could still take some time, however, for Obama and Netanyahu to overcome the latest strains in an already-fraught relationship that some analysts say is just as much a hindrance to reviving the moribund peace process as policy differences.

Netanyahu resisted offering any concessions in his Oval Office talks on Friday.

Obama’s speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) also served as a reminder his peace formula could cost him support among Jewish and pro-Israel voters and donors as he runs for re-election in 2012. Some prospective Republican presidential challengers have already accused him of betraying Israel, Washington’s closest ally in the region.

ACKNOWLEDGES DIFFERENCES

“Even while we may at times disagree, as friends sometimes will, the bonds between the United States and Israel are unbreakable, and the commitment of the United States to the security of Israel is ironclad,” Obama said to loud applause.

But Obama sometimes met stony silence from the AIPAC audience and at one point drew a smattering of boos.

Israeli officials were pleased, however, to hear Obama again reject a Palestinian plan to seek UN. recognition of statehood in September and condemn a recent reconciliation deal between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas Islamists. But he also pressed Israel to “make the hard choices” for peace.

An aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said: “We appreciate President Obama’s stated position regarding a state on the 1967 borders, it is a step in the right direction.”

Yesterday, Obama reiterated the “principles” he outlined on Thursday in a speech on Middle East upheaval, but introduced new phrasing that assuaged some of Netanyahu’s concerns.

At issue is Obama’s embrace of a long-sought goal by the Palestinians: that the state they seek in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip should largely be drawn along lines that existed before the 1967 war in which Israel captured those territories and East Jerusalem.

The proposal would call for negotiated land swaps for Israel to retain some large settlements in the West Bank.

Obama chided those who he said had “misrepresented” his position, a slap at Netanyahu, who had seized on the notion that he was being asked to return to 1967 lines while ignoring the president’s stipulation there would be land exchanges.

“By definition, it means that the parties themselves — Israelis and Palestinians — will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967. That’s what mutually agreed upon swaps means,” Obama said.

“It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last forty-four years... to take account of those changes including the new demographic realities on the ground.”

IN LINE WITH BUSH PROMISES

Obama’s new wording was more in line with guarantees by former President George W. Bush in 2004 saying it was “unrealistic” for Israel to return to old borders and suggesting it may keep settlement blocs under any peace pact.

A senior US official insisted however, that even though “people are trying to suggest that he felt he had to clarify something he said on Thursday, he did no such thing.”

Despite that, Obama’s stress on 1967 borders put the United States formally on record as endorsing the old boundaries as a starting point, something it had only embraced privately.

Obama’s aim was to draw Palestinians back to the table and head off their UN statehood drive, but the Palestinians signalled they would not be deterred. Obama, leaving on a European tour later on Sunday, planned to try to convince European leaders not to support a unilateral statehood bid.

US-brokered talks collapsed late last year when Netanyahu refused to extend a moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank and the Palestinians walked away.

Netanyahu is expected to be feted when he addresses AIPAC today and then speaks to the US Congress tomorrow where he will have a chance to rally support for his stance.

While Obama won the Jewish vote overwhelmingly in 2008, some prominent Jewish Americans were rethinking their support for his re-election after this week’s events.

Some Israelis have never felt entirely comfortable with Obama, unnerved by his early attempts to reach out to Iran and his support for Arab revolutions that have unsettled Israel.

PLO says no talks until Israel halts settlements

The Palestinian leadership said on Saturday negotiations with Israel would not resume until it halted settlement building.

US-backed peace talks, launched a month ago in Washington, were plunged into crisis this week by the end of a 10-month Israeli moratorium on new settlement building in the West Bank. Israel has said it will not extend the freeze.

“The leadership confirms that the resumption of talks requires tangible steps, the first of them a freeze on settlements,” senior Palestine Liberation Official (PLO) Yasser Abed Rabbo said after a meeting in Ramallah.

“The Palestinian leadership holds Israel responsible for obstructing the negotiations,” he said, reading from a statement issued after the meeting.

Palestinians say the growth of the settlements, on land Israel has occupied since 1967, will render impossible the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip — the stated goal of the peace talks.
Some 500,000 Jews have settled on territory where the Palestinians aim to establish their state with East Jerusalem as its capital. To Israel, the West Bank is “Judea and Samaria” — where the Jews trace their biblical past.
Benjamin Netanyahu, whose coalition government is dominated by pro-settlement parties including his own Likud, has said he will not extend the construction moratorium, which has been in place for 10 months and expired on Monday.
An official quoted Netanyahu on Friday as saying it had not been easy to freeze construction for the past 10 months and that he had lived up to his commitments to the Palestinians, the United States and the international community.
“Now I expect the Palestinians to show some flexibility,” Netanyahu was quoted as saying. “Everyone knows that measured and restrained building in Judaea and Samaria (the West Bank) in the coming year will have no influence on the peace map.”
US President Barack Obama has invested major political capital in a bid for a Middle East settlement within a year.
US envoy George Mitchell shuttled between Mahmoud Abbas and Netanyahu for two days this week. The sides agreed to keep talking via Mitchell, the way they had communicated before the launch of the direct talks.
“So far, efforts have reached a dead end,” Nabil Abu Rdainah, spokesman for Abbas, said on his way out of the PLO meeting. Abbas had informed Mitchell of the Palestinian position during their meeting on Friday, he said.
“There will be no negotiations in the shadow of continued settlement,” Abu Rdainah said. “All the while Israel is not convinced that the political process be based on international law and justice, matters will remain in a state of paralysis for a long time.”

In our world Islamic sympathizers are called terrorists

US envoy to try to salvage Mideast peace talks

Washington's special Mideast envoy is to pressure Israeli and Palestinian leaders to keep peace talks from collapsing just weeks after they began.

George Mitchell's mission follows Israel's decision to resume settlement construction in the West Bank after a 10-month freeze. The move has thrown the talks into disarray.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has threatened to walk out of the negotiations if Israel doesn't renew the moratorium.

The U.S. is disappointed over Israel's refusal to relent and has dispatched Mitchell to try to bridge the gaps. Mitchell is expected to arrive on Tuesday.

Abbas has said he will decide whether to quit the talks after consulting senior Arab officials next week. That gives U.S. mediators time to try to broker a compromise..

A Jewish settler boy looks at earth-moving equipment working at a construction site in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Ariel, Monday, Sept. 27, 2010. Senior Palestinian official Yasser Abed Rabbo said Monday that President Mahmoud Abbas remains ready to walk out on Mideast peace talks if Israel resumes construction in its West Bank settlements now that building restrictions have expired.

 

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, second right, arrives for a meeting with Jewish representatives living in France in Paris Sunday, Sept. 26, 2010. Abbas will meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday. 

 

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, left, attends a meeting with Jewish representatives living in France in Paris Sunday, Sept. 26, 2010. Abbas will meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday.

Israeli Settlement Slowdown to End at Midnight - Unfrozen settlements put peace on ice

Obama to urge support for Middle East peace at UN

US President Barack Obama is to make a plea at the United Nations today for international support for the Middle East peace process, urging world leaders to make sure “this time is different” from previous failed efforts.

Obama (picture) is to urge opponents of Israel and the Palestinians to look beyond decades of mistrust and bloodshed and to resist pessimism in support of talks between the parties aimed at creating a Palestinian state living alongside Israel in peace and security.

In excerpts of his address to the UN General Assembly released by the White House, Obama will specifically urge nations that have pledged support for the Palestinians to meet their obligations for both political and financial support and “must stop trying to tear Israel down”.

“Many in this hall count themselves as friends of the Palestinians. But these pledges must now be supported by deeds,” he will say, according to excerpts of the speech. Obama is scheduled to speak at 10am EDT/1400 GMT.

The United States is trying to keep direct talks brokered by Obama between Israel and the Palestinians on track.

But Israel’s refusal so far to extend a moratorium on settlements in the occupied West Bank has put the process at risk, with the Palestinians threatening to quit the negotiations if settlement construction resumes when the partial moratorium expires on September 30.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose coalition government is dominated by pro-settler parties, has said he will not extend the construction moratorium but could limit the scope of further building in some settlements.

Obama, who brought the two sides together in Washington on September 2 to restart direct talks after a 20-month hiatus, will spell out in his speech that Arab friends of the Palestinians must show Israel how much it has to gain from seeking peace.

“Those who have signed on to the Arab Peace Initiative should seize this opportunity to make it real by describing and demonstrating the normalisation that it promises Israel,” he will tell the United Nations, while urging Arab nations to offer tangible support to the Palestinian Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas.

“Those who speak out for Palestinian self-government should help the Palestinian Authority with political and financial support,” he will say.

Obama will also call on all nations with an interest in Middle East peace to get behind the effort and resist “rejectionists on both sides” who will seek to disrupt the process “with bitter words and with bombs.”

Middle East peace could be delayed again, he said, “Or, we can say that this time will be different – that this time we will not let terror, or turbulence, or posturing, or petty politics stand in the way.”

The Jewish settlements on the West Bank, which Israel seized during a 1967 war, are deemed by the World Court to be illegal, a finding disputed by Israel. Palestinians fear the enclaves will deny them a viable and contiguous country.