The United States plans to rejoin UNESCO in July, close to five years after its withdrawal to protest the organization’s 2011 decision to recognize Palestine as a member state, as well as its passing of resolutions viewed as biased against Israel.
“This is a strong act of confidence, in UNESCO and in multilateralism,” UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said.
“This is a strong act of confidence, in UNESCO and in multilateralism.”
UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay
“Not only in the centrality of the Organization’s mandate – culture, education, science, information – but also in the way this mandate is being implemented today,” said Audrey Azoulay.
She informed delegates of UNESCO 193 member states of the Biden administration’s decision on Monday.
The move had largely been anticipated since the US Congressional Omnibus bill approved in December 2022 included funding for UNESCO and language that would for the US to resume its membership in the organization.
UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay (credit: PHILIPPE WOJAZER / REUTERS)The Obama administration stopped funding UNESCO in 2011
A previous congressional edict had barred the US from funding organizations that recognized Palestine as a member state. The Obama administration as a result immediately stopped funding UNESCO after it recognized Palestine as a member state in 2011, but never formally withdrew from the organization.
The Trump administration, however, severed the relationship after UNESCO’s Executive Board passed controversial resolutions solely recognizing Jerusalem’s Temple Mount solely as a Muslim holy site and after its World Heritage Committee had registered The Tomb of the Patriarchs to the State of Palestine.
US Jewish groups immediately lauded the Biden administration’s decision to rejoin UNESCO.
The American Jewish Committee said that “continued US absence from UNESCO – an agency that supports educational efforts to fight antisemitism and preserve Holocaust memory, and which under current leadership has halted the adoption of one-sided resolutions prejudicial to Israel – did not serve American national interests and values, or those of our allies.
“AJC has favored a US return under carefully negotiated conditions, worked with members of Congress to satisfy longstanding concerns, and welcomes the Biden administration’s move to rejoin this important multilateral institution.”
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