Unesco unity call as US, Israel prepare exit
THE NEW CHIEF of the United Nations cultural agency Unesco has vowed to overcome political divisions after Israel and the United States said they would walk out.
Former French culture minister Audrey Azoulay, who has Moroccan Jewish heritage, was officially inaugurated in her role on Friday.
“It’s a sovereign decision by a state that I respect, but which at the same time is not the beginning and end of Unesco,” she told the radio station France Inter.
“There have been long periods at Unesco — more than 15 years — without the United States, which ultimately came back.”
Her remarks came as it emerged Israel had still not filed any exit paperwork a full month since saying it would follow the United States out of the cultural agency.
Benjamin Netanyahu said last month he had instructed his foreign ministry to prepare to pull Israel out after the Trump administration said the US would be leaving. But Unesco’s communications director Vincent Defourney said that, while the United States’s withdrawal letter had arrived, Israel had sent nothing. “I don’t know what they have done but I know we haven’t received their letter,” Mr Defourney told the JC. “Israel is still a member. It has not withdrawn from Unesco.”
The US withdrawal letter cites what it calls Unesco’s “anti-Israeli bias” as one of the reasons for its departure. Unesco has approved several resolutions and decisions on Jerusalem and Hebron which denounce Israel as an aggressive occupier.
The organisation also drew Israeli anger when several sites sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians were classified as Palestinian sites and referred to almost exclusively under their Islamic names.
The US and Israel had earlier suspended their financial contributions to Unesco in 2011 when Palestine was accepted as a member state.
Since 2011 the US has accumulated $550 million (£417.9 million) in arrears, a contributing factor to the decision to leave.