(Paris) The United States announced on Tuesday to withdraw Unesco again, believing that the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture showed bias against Israel and promotes “divisive” causes.
In 2018, Donald Trump had already slammed the door of this institution, invoking “anti-Israeli” biases. The United States had reintegrated her in 2023, under the Democratic Administration of Joe Biden.
The director of UNESCO, the Frenchman Audrey Azoulay, said “deeply regret” this decision, which will be effective at the end of 2026, even if she was “expected”.
UNESCO had “prepared” there and “is better protected on the budgetary plan” than other UN agencies, she said, stressing that the American contribution of $ 75 million annual represents only 8 % of the total budget of the organization.
For Washington, “the continuation of the United States’s participation in UNESCO is not in the national interest,” said state-department of the State Department, Tammy Bruce in a statement.
“UNESCO is working to promote cleavage social and cultural causes” and defends “an ideological and globalist roadmap for international development, in contradiction with our” America First “foreign policy (America first),” she explained.
She also judged that UNESCO’s decision to integrate “Palestine’s state” in 2011 “is highly problematic, contrary to the policy of the United States, and contributed to the proliferation of discourse hostile to Israel within the organization”.
“These arguments contradict the reality of the efforts carried out by UNESCO, especially for the teaching of the Shoah and the fight against anti -Semitism,” replied Mme Azoulay.
Three departures in 40 years
French President Emmanuel Macron assured Unesco, whose headquarters are in Paris, of his “unwavering support”. “The withdrawal of the United States will not weaken our commitment alongside those who have this fight,” he said on network X.
On the Israeli side, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Saar welcomed “a necessary measure, intended to promote the justice and the right of Israel to fair treatment within the United Nations system, a right which has often been flouted due to the politicization of this body”.
This is the third time that Washington has left UNESCO in the space of 40 years.
In October 2017, during his first mandate, Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of his country by denouncing the “persistent anti-Israeli biases” of the institution. This withdrawal, followed by that of Israel, had become effective in December 2018.
UNESCO had notably caused Israeli fury in July 2017 by scoring the old town of Hebron on the World Heritage List in danger and characterizing Hebron, in an occupied West Bank, of Islamic City, while the Jews, of which a few hundred live there today entrenched in the middle of 200,000 Palestinians, claim a 4,000 -year presence.
Having become one of UNESCO of UNESCO in November 2017, Audrey Azoulay had obtained from the Biden administration-who succeeded Trump in 2021-a return from the United States, who had committed to fully repaying their payment arrears since 2011, in the amount of $ 619 million.
After the admission of Palestine to UNESCO that year, Washington had ceased any funding, under an American law prohibiting funding an organization whose Palestinian State is a member.
In 1984, Ronald Reagan also withdrew American participation by invoking the supposed uselessness and the organization’s budget overflows – reintegrated in 2003.
Reduced dependence
If they leave the UNESCO framework organization, the United States will remain a member of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which votes to designate the sites protected by the organization, said a source close to the UNESCO file.
Accustomed to the reversals of Washington, UNESCO has worked in recent years to reduce its dependence on American funding, in particular by increasing the share of voluntary contributions, which have doubled under Audrey Azoulay.
“This decision will nevertheless affect our activities in the years to come, or forced us to seek other sources of funding,” adds the source close to the file.
UNESCO is best known for its educational programs and its world heritage rankings of cultural goods and remarkable natural sites, sometimes threatened. The organization has also seized in recent years from the question of the ethical use of artificial intelligence.