Summary
The UN cultural agency whose admission of Palestine to membership is the subject of Falk’s post “UNESCO Membership and Palestinian Self-Determination”, which he treats as a symbolic battlefield of the Legitimacy struggle lying inside the UN system (Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope, PDF p.37-44).
Details
- The vote, as Falk gives it: “The simple arithmetic of the UNESCO vote—107 in favor, 14 opposed, 52 abstentions, and 21 absent—fails to tell the story of the vote’s one-sidedness.” (PDF p.38)
- The application carried the necessary two-thirds vote despite United States diplomacy of threat and intimidation; the threatened United States withholding amounted to some 643 million in 2010–11, under ambiguous legislation deriving from the early 1990s (PDF p.39).
- China, India, Russia, Brazil and South Africa all voted to admit Palestine, as Falk lists them (PDF p.40).
- Admission is “a day of celebration and vindication for the Palestinian people and a political victory for the PLO leadership”, and a prompt to seek membership in the WHO, the International Criminal Court, UNICEF and the International Court of Justice (PDF p.44).
Related pages
Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope, Legitimacy struggle, Self-determination, Palestine Liberation Organization