Unesco's 193 members are more likely than the UN Security Council to accept the Palestinian membership bid
By Jon Donnison
BBC News, Ramallah
31 October 2011
Last updated at 04:09 ET
Palestinian leaders will ask for Palestine to be admitted as a member of the UN cultural and scientific organisation, Unesco, at a vote in Paris on Monday.
Israel is strongly against the move.
The US has said it will cut funding to Unesco if the bid is approved.
The Palestinian move is aimed at gaining momentum ahead of a UN Security Council vote in November on whether Palestine should become a full United Nations member state.
Membership of Unesco - perhaps best known for its World Heritage Sites - may seem a strange step towards Palestinian statehood.
But leaders here see it as part of a broader push to get international recognition and pressure Israel.
Funding at stake
The move comes a month after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas asked for Palestine to become a full UN member state.
The UN Security Council is expected to vote on that bid in November. The United States has said it will use its veto.
But at Unesco, the US does not have veto power and Palestinian membership would likely be approved by the organisation's 193 members.
The Palestinian move has put Unesco in a bind.
Following a US law passed in the 1990s, America says it would cut funding to any UN body that admits Palestine as a full member.
That amounts to $70m (£43.7m) a year and over 20% of Unesco's entire budget.
Do you see what America is doing here? Look at this:
"Unesco: Wikipedia:
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO; pronounced /juːˈnɛskoʊ/) is a specialized agency of the United Nations. Its stated purpose is to contribute to peace and security by promoting international collaboration through education, science, and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and the human rights along with fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the UN Charter.[2] It is the heir of the League of Nations' International Commission on Intellectual Cooperation.
Israel has got Americans voting against international cooperation in education, science, and culture. Obama is breaking America's commitment to the U.N.'s Declaration of protection of the right of self-determination of indigenous peoples signed last year. Under Israeli Occupation of the White House and Congress America has become a pariah state opposed to human rights in the Middle East for anyone except Israeli Jews.
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