Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Israel Freezes Contribution to UNESCO

Israel will freeze its annual contribution to UNESCO in the wake of the agency’s vote to give full membership to the Palestinians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel’s $2 million annual contribution to the United Nations cultural agency would be withheld and instead be directed to cooperative initiatives in the region working toward the same goals as UNESCO.

“Such steps will not advance peace; they will only push it further away,” Netanyahu said following the announcement, referring to this week’s vote. “The only way to reach peace is through direct negotiations without preconditions.”

The United States, applying a long-standing law, cut funding to UNESCO following the vote. Its annual dues make up more than 20 percent of the agency’s budget.

Meanwhile, the director general of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, called on the United States to reinstate its funding, saying the cutoff jeopardized programs that are important to the U.S. Bokova also said that without the U.S. funding, the agency will not be able to maintain its current level of activity, The Associated Press reported.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told AP on Thursday that Palestinian efforts to seek membership in other U.N. agencies are are “not beneficial for Palestine and not beneficial for anybody.”

The Palestinians have said that they will ask for full membership in another 16 U.N. agencies.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.