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Earlier this week, Israel’s FM Smotrich called on PM Netanyahu to publicly oppose Washington’s plan to rejoin the body that ‘distorts history’
The UN’s cultural agency UNESCO on Friday said the United States had rejoined the body, five years after it withdrew over claims of anti-Israel bias.
Earlier this month, UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay said the U.S. would rejoin the organization in July, prompting Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to call on his Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to publicly oppose the plan.
In a letter, he insisted that Jerusalem should take a stand against Washington’s return to an organization that he said “distorts history.”
Since Washington declared its desire to rejoin UNESCO to counter China’s growing influence within the organization, Netanyahu has not expressed a position on the matter.
Until the suspension of its contributions in 2011, when UNESCO admitted the West Bank’s Palestinian Authority as a member state, the U.S. paid about 22 percent of UNESCO’s budget – or $75 million.
But former U.S. president Donald Trump announced in 2017 that he was pulling out of UNESCO alongside Israel, accusing the body of bias against the Jewish state, a decision that took effect in 2018. Their pullout followed two Arab-sponsored resolutions adopted by UNESCO, which were critical of Israel.
Washington at the time accused UNESCO of having an “anti-Israel bias” while Netanyahu slammed UNESCO for becoming “the theater of the absurd.”
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