You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Israel to Freeze Funding for UNESCO

HeadlineNov 04, 2011

Israel has announced it will join the United States in freezing funding of UNESCO following Monday’s vote to grant the Palestinians membership in the U.N. cultural body. Israel had previously pledged $2 million annually to UNESCO.

Mark Regev, spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “Government budgets that were earmarked for UNESCO will now go to support projects, regional projects, Middle East projects, designed to encourage cooperation in science, culture and education. These projects will bolster peace, and not undermine peace, as done the recent decision by UNESCO.”

Besides freezing funding to UNESCO, Israel has ordered the construction of 2,000 new settlement homes on occupied land and suspended the transfer of tax revenue it collects for the Palestinians. Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, defended the Palestinian effort to join UNESCO.

Riyad Mansour: “We are trying to become like others in joining this very important U.N. agency as a full member to be involved in a collective process with the rest of humanity in defending treasures of humanity, historical sites, religious sites, and being involved in an active way with cultural issues and scientific issues.”

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top