1984: U.S. withdraws.
2003: U.S. rejoins.
2011: U.S. stops paying dues after Palestine joins.
2017: U.S. announces withdrawal (effective end of 2018).
2023: U.S. rejoins, pledges to repay dues.
2025: U.S announces withdrawal
They're getting ready to bomb Iran's UNESCO sites. They did bomb several UNESCO sites in Yugoslavia and other places while they left. Their boy Grossi also told the whole world that there is a big target on a UNESCO site a short while back.
Similar to the Israeli ambassador being recalled from Dublin. They mean it as a big dramatic statement but they've done it that many times it's lost all significance.
She only gets reinstated again for the purpose of making another dramatic exit.
They’re never happy about the loss of money. For UN institutions, the US usually contributes a theoretical cap of about 22% but in real terms I think it’s more like a quarter of their annual budget or a little over in some cases. When we’re not paying, that’s a lot of money that UNESCO isn’t getting.
If you abandon it completely something else might rise up - but funding/participating only up to a point, it works to suppress it - see Ukraine aid policies aswell
Cycle of politician appeasing their genocidal masters until the government start to realize what that means exactly at which point we pull back to humanity.
Obama withdrew all US funds from UNESCO in 2011 as well, due to Palestine being admitted in. This isn't anything particularly noteworthy, just more capitulating to Israel, which is annoying.
"In 2011, the United States stopped funding Unesco because of what was then a forgotten, 15-year-old amendment mandating a complete cutoff of American financing to any United Nations agency that accepts Palestine as a full member. Various efforts by President Barack Obama to overturn the legal restriction narrowly failed in Congress, and the United States lost its vote at the organization after two years of nonpayment, in 2013."
> 15-year-old amendment mandating a complete cutoff of American financing to any United Nations agency that accepts Palestine as a full member
As a non-American, doesn't this seem a little ridiculous to some people in the US? This screams of a kind of melodramatic, overdone theatrics that the US doesn't seem to do to anyone else. I get that the US has a lot of Israeli money/investments/customers and extremely religious people, but even then, why is it going this far to enshrine their relations to specific states in their laws? It ends up coming off as the US bowing on their knees to relatively minor nations on the other side of the world.
There is also a US law banning military aid to Israel since they have nukes outside of the NPT. Pakistan got an exception after a deal with their cooperation in the war on Terror.
Sure, it was a Democrat president enforcing laws passed by a Democrat-controlled House and Senate in 1990 and 1994, under at least one Democrat president.
There are no real "sides" when it comes to the U.S. and Israel. Every party bends the knee and kisses the wall. It’s one big club, and we’re not in it.
The is a good point: the decision was made by Congress, not by Obama. Although I disagree with that decision, that is the correct way to make it. Now, Trump is withdrawing unilaterally, without Congressional approval.
I really wish we weren't a puppet state of Israel. What they're doing in Palestine currently turns my stomach. It's one thing to get your people back after the horrible attack from Hamas, it's another to mow down people who are just trying to get food with a submachine gun.
The US is complicit in the intentional starvation of gaza’s people by israel. At least 15 people have starved to death in the last 24 hours, including an infant.
For whatever reason, the Palestine/Israel conflict causes people to just stop being rational. Like, the facts are there, both parties attack each other as part of the conflict throughout history, but for whatever reason, people really want to pick sides on this one, and Im not sure why.
Its not the genocide aspect - there are other genocides that are happening (Myanmar for example) that don't cause this reaction. Don't think its anti antisemitism either, as you don't see a lot of narratives that come with traditional rhetoric of that type.
Whoever is pushing media out on this is must have figured something out in the format to make people this polarized.
This was less true before Trump’s return. It’s frustrating that people said they wouldn’t support Biden/Harris over this and now instead we get essentially full-throated endorsement of genocide instead.
Like there were always practical limits to how much the US could constrain Israel, especially due to its relative popularity until recently. A bunch of activists didn’t recognize that and tacitly endorsed letting Trump win and now here we are.
"KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip—Thousands of hungry Palestinians amassed last Tuesday morning outside a barbed-wire fence surrounding the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid center here. The moment the gates cracked open, the crowd surged forward.
American security contractors tried to keep control, but scores of men pushed through barricades and snatched boxes of food awaiting distribution. Others sprinted in behind them. Men on speeding motorcycles raced past the pedestrians to grab whatever food they could. Gunshots rang out—it wasn’t clear from where. Within about 15 minutes, all the food was gone."
What are you implying? Genuinely I can’t tell who you think these “men on speeding motorcycles” are?
I don’t see anything obviously suspicious in that - if your family was starving would you sit back and let them die? Or maybe hop on a motorcycle and cut to the front of the queue?
> I know it's easy to judge being far away, but seriously, men on speeding motorcycles?
Why wouldn't they be on "speeding" motorcycles? They have a family to feed. They're probably coming from some distance away. People travel on motorcycles.
Sweden and the US are “kinda cozy” (I would say at least, from an inside perspective on how Sweden seems to lean in to US interests including copyright enforcements and so forth).
However Sweden was the first country to recognise Palestine.
Is it possible that the pulling out of UNESCO is further in-line with Trumps “we want to focus on America” fluff, similar to the threats of pulling out of NATO and the actual pulling out of the Paris Accords.
I’m aware that there has still been some US interference in the middle-east, I’m just not sure I’m drawing the same connections as you.
Also, and I mean this in the best way I can: I don’t really trust anything coming out of Gaza’s health ministry. That doesn’t mean I side with Israel as they are also distorting facts very often.
If you don't believe Gaza's health ministry, how about Agence France-Presse?
The journalists' association of the French wire service Agence France-Presse (AFP) warned on Monday that staff working with the agency in Gaza are at risk of starvation and that "without intervention, the last reporters in Gaza will die."
In the statement, the SDJ said that AFP's journalists in Gaza have warned that they no longer have strength to report, with one photographer, Bashar Taleb, saying in a post on Facebook: "My body is thin and I can no longer work."
"Since AFP was founded in August 1944, we have lost journalists in conflicts, we have had wounded and prisoners in our ranks, but none of us can recall seeing a colleague die of hunger," the SDJ said in a post on X.
> Is it possible that the pulling out of UNESCO is further in-line with Trumps “we want to focus on America” fluff
That would be great (?), except the stated reason for pulling out was "anti-Israel bias". It's about kowtowing to a foreign terror regime, not standing up for America.
>Is it possible that the pulling out of UNESCO is further in-line with Trumps “we want to focus on America” fluff, similar to the threats of pulling out of NATO and the actual pulling out of the Paris Accords.
Why would you give them the benefit of the doubt when they directly state that they're withdrawing over the decision to admit Palestine?
So far all independent verifications of the gaza health ministry’s numbers have found that they under-report the death toll.
And i’m not sure how your sweden example says anything about the US supporting israel’s genocide? Was there something you expected to happen when sweden recognized palestine?
Pretty much all atrocities in the middle east can be traced back Europeans (mainly UK) carving up the area after ww1 and theirs and American imperialism since ww2. Israel is a project of this.
> UNESCO works to advance divisive social and cultural causes
I wish I could remember where I heard it, but someone once pointed out that the only difference between special interests and public interests was who said it. This feels like that.
If I had to guess (putting on a hat I don't usually wear):
Recognition of Palestine as a member state; resolutions referring to certain contested sites (e.g., Jerusalem's Old City, Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif) primarily using their Arabic names; promotion of gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights, as well as support for comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) programs; emphasis on climate change action, including its designation of World Heritage Sites at risk due to global warming; alignment with the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (specifically SDGs related to gender, education, and environmental goals); and advocacy for internet governance initiatives
> Target 1.4: By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology, and financial services
> Indicator 1.4.2: Proportion of total adult population with secure tenure rights to land [...] [This goal seems to state that poor people should own just as much land as rich people. That's insane, but even ignoring that, the goal definitely states that renting is evil and everyone needs to own.]
> Target 1.b: Create sound policy frameworks at the national, regional and international levels, based on pro-poor and gender-sensitive development strategies, to support accelerated investment in poverty eradication actions
> Target 3.5: Strengthen the prevention and treatment of substance abuse, including narcotic drug abuse and harmful use of alcohol
> Indicator 3.5.1: Alcohol per capita consumption (aged 15 years and older) within a calendar year in litres of pure alcohol [In other words, the UN considers itself to be achieving this goal if people drink less alcohol than they used to. There is no indicator for problems caused by substance abuse.]
> Target 3.7: By 2030, ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services, including for family planning, information, and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes
> Target 3.8: Achieve universal health coverage, including [...]
> Target 4.1: By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education [...]
> Target 4.2: By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education
> Target 4.5: By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations
> Indicator 4.5.1: Parity indices (female/male, rural/urban, bottom/top wealth quintile and others such as disability status, indigenous peoples and conflict-affected, as data become available) for all education indicators on this list
> Target 4.7: By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture's contribution to sustainable development
> Target 4.a: Build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive [...]
> Target 10.3: Ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome [...]
> Target 10.4: Adopt policies, especially fiscal, wage, and social protection policies, and progressively achieve greater equality
> Target 10.a: [we're still on the goal "reduce inequality"] Implement the principle of special and differential treatment for developing countries [...]
> Target 9.2: Promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and, by 2030, significantly raise industry's share of employment and gross domestic product [If they really mean this, I'll admit that it swings the opposite way from what I would have expected. I have a suspicion that they don't want this to happen in developed countries. The indicators don't disambiguate. Either way it's a divisive cause.]
> Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change
> Target 12.2: By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources
> Indicator 12.2.1: Material footprint, material footprint per capita, and material footprint per GDP ["We want people to have less stuff."]
> Indicator 12.2.2: Domestic material consumption, domestic material consumption per capita, and domestic material consumption per GDP ["We want people to have less stuff."]
> Target 14.5: By 2020, conserve at least 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas
> Target 16.b: Promote and enforce non-discriminatory laws and policies for sustainable development
> Indicator 16.b.1: Proportion of population reporting having personally felt discriminated against or harassed in the previous 12 months
I wouldn't call this an ideologically neutral set of goals, no.
Target 16.1 seems fine, though I'm a little surprised they didn't use the "By 2030, end all [...]" phrasing.
> I wouldn't call this an ideologically neutral set of goals
What would you call it? I mean, none of it sounds like something you can make a argument that it shouldn't be achieved at all. In fact, I would question the ideology of someone that wouldn't want to achieve those goals.
UNESCO is against the US-backed Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people, and is against the theft of Palestinian land. That's it - they simply don't support murdering children.
There is no role for the USA in multi-lateral organizations - the USA has made this clear for decades now - it should withdraw from all of them and let the rest of the world get on with creating a world that is based on the dignity of all people.
Sadly, these kinds of high-level decisions (which really do not matter in the grand scheme of things) only make it harder to combat real anti-Semitism: the real anti-Semitism is when people assume you need to move to Israel, and imply that you’re not a “real” American.
Readit News
Seems to be a revolving door
She only gets reinstated again for the purpose of making another dramatic exit.
In the two decades between 1984 and 2003, UNESCO implemented a number of reforms in management+transparency+politicization, and the U.S. returned.
Then Palestine was admitted, and the U.S. left.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220503183152/https://www.nytim...
As a non-American, doesn't this seem a little ridiculous to some people in the US? This screams of a kind of melodramatic, overdone theatrics that the US doesn't seem to do to anyone else. I get that the US has a lot of Israeli money/investments/customers and extremely religious people, but even then, why is it going this far to enshrine their relations to specific states in their laws? It ends up coming off as the US bowing on their knees to relatively minor nations on the other side of the world.
https://web.archive.org/web/20141224180231/https://foreignpo...
There are no real "sides" when it comes to the U.S. and Israel. Every party bends the knee and kisses the wall. It’s one big club, and we’re not in it.
Edit: 40+ year-long trend?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44648359
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000012506323&seq=...
Remember when presidents followed the law?
not to mention that Hamas was supposed already destroyed 6 months ago
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-gaza-war-hunger-childre...
Ragequitting UNESCO over their recognition of palestine is a small part of the project of supporting the ethnic cleansing of gaza and the west bank.
Its not the genocide aspect - there are other genocides that are happening (Myanmar for example) that don't cause this reaction. Don't think its anti antisemitism either, as you don't see a lot of narratives that come with traditional rhetoric of that type.
Whoever is pushing media out on this is must have figured something out in the format to make people this polarized.
Nothing to see here, no conflicts of interest.
Let’s trust the people who kidnapped babies and raped and pillaged their way across southern israel.
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Like there were always practical limits to how much the US could constrain Israel, especially due to its relative popularity until recently. A bunch of activists didn’t recognize that and tacitly endorsed letting Trump win and now here we are.
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"KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip—Thousands of hungry Palestinians amassed last Tuesday morning outside a barbed-wire fence surrounding the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid center here. The moment the gates cracked open, the crowd surged forward.
American security contractors tried to keep control, but scores of men pushed through barricades and snatched boxes of food awaiting distribution. Others sprinted in behind them. Men on speeding motorcycles raced past the pedestrians to grab whatever food they could. Gunshots rang out—it wasn’t clear from where. Within about 15 minutes, all the food was gone."
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/us-israel-gaza-aid-dea...
I know it's easy to judge being far away, but seriously, men on speeding motorcycles?
I don’t see anything obviously suspicious in that - if your family was starving would you sit back and let them die? Or maybe hop on a motorcycle and cut to the front of the queue?
Why wouldn't they be on "speeding" motorcycles? They have a family to feed. They're probably coming from some distance away. People travel on motorcycles.
Desperation and survival.
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However Sweden was the first country to recognise Palestine.
Is it possible that the pulling out of UNESCO is further in-line with Trumps “we want to focus on America” fluff, similar to the threats of pulling out of NATO and the actual pulling out of the Paris Accords.
I’m aware that there has still been some US interference in the middle-east, I’m just not sure I’m drawing the same connections as you.
Also, and I mean this in the best way I can: I don’t really trust anything coming out of Gaza’s health ministry. That doesn’t mean I side with Israel as they are also distorting facts very often.
The journalists' association of the French wire service Agence France-Presse (AFP) warned on Monday that staff working with the agency in Gaza are at risk of starvation and that "without intervention, the last reporters in Gaza will die."
In the statement, the SDJ said that AFP's journalists in Gaza have warned that they no longer have strength to report, with one photographer, Bashar Taleb, saying in a post on Facebook: "My body is thin and I can no longer work."
"Since AFP was founded in August 1944, we have lost journalists in conflicts, we have had wounded and prisoners in our ranks, but none of us can recall seeing a colleague die of hunger," the SDJ said in a post on X.
https://www.euronews.com/2025/07/22/afp-journalists-at-risk-...
That would be great (?), except the stated reason for pulling out was "anti-Israel bias". It's about kowtowing to a foreign terror regime, not standing up for America.
Why would you give them the benefit of the doubt when they directly state that they're withdrawing over the decision to admit Palestine?
And i’m not sure how your sweden example says anything about the US supporting israel’s genocide? Was there something you expected to happen when sweden recognized palestine?
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Pretty much all atrocities in the middle east can be traced back Europeans (mainly UK) carving up the area after ww1 and theirs and American imperialism since ww2. Israel is a project of this.
I wish I could remember where I heard it, but someone once pointed out that the only difference between special interests and public interests was who said it. This feels like that.
Recognition of Palestine as a member state; resolutions referring to certain contested sites (e.g., Jerusalem's Old City, Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif) primarily using their Arabic names; promotion of gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights, as well as support for comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) programs; emphasis on climate change action, including its designation of World Heritage Sites at risk due to global warming; alignment with the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (specifically SDGs related to gender, education, and environmental goals); and advocacy for internet governance initiatives
The ramblings of the anti-war set...
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The Goals are defined here: https://sdgs.un.org/goals
> Target 1.4: By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology, and financial services
> Indicator 1.4.2: Proportion of total adult population with secure tenure rights to land [...] [This goal seems to state that poor people should own just as much land as rich people. That's insane, but even ignoring that, the goal definitely states that renting is evil and everyone needs to own.]
> Target 1.b: Create sound policy frameworks at the national, regional and international levels, based on pro-poor and gender-sensitive development strategies, to support accelerated investment in poverty eradication actions
> Target 3.5: Strengthen the prevention and treatment of substance abuse, including narcotic drug abuse and harmful use of alcohol
> Indicator 3.5.1: Alcohol per capita consumption (aged 15 years and older) within a calendar year in litres of pure alcohol [In other words, the UN considers itself to be achieving this goal if people drink less alcohol than they used to. There is no indicator for problems caused by substance abuse.]
> Target 3.7: By 2030, ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services, including for family planning, information, and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes
> Target 3.8: Achieve universal health coverage, including [...]
> Target 4.1: By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education [...]
> Target 4.2: By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education
> Target 4.5: By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations
> Indicator 4.5.1: Parity indices (female/male, rural/urban, bottom/top wealth quintile and others such as disability status, indigenous peoples and conflict-affected, as data become available) for all education indicators on this list
> Target 4.7: By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture's contribution to sustainable development
> Target 4.a: Build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive [...]
> Target 10.3: Ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome [...]
> Target 10.4: Adopt policies, especially fiscal, wage, and social protection policies, and progressively achieve greater equality
> Target 10.a: [we're still on the goal "reduce inequality"] Implement the principle of special and differential treatment for developing countries [...]
> Target 9.2: Promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and, by 2030, significantly raise industry's share of employment and gross domestic product [If they really mean this, I'll admit that it swings the opposite way from what I would have expected. I have a suspicion that they don't want this to happen in developed countries. The indicators don't disambiguate. Either way it's a divisive cause.]
> Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change
> Target 12.2: By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources
> Indicator 12.2.1: Material footprint, material footprint per capita, and material footprint per GDP ["We want people to have less stuff."]
> Indicator 12.2.2: Domestic material consumption, domestic material consumption per capita, and domestic material consumption per GDP ["We want people to have less stuff."]
> Target 14.5: By 2020, conserve at least 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas
> Target 16.b: Promote and enforce non-discriminatory laws and policies for sustainable development
> Indicator 16.b.1: Proportion of population reporting having personally felt discriminated against or harassed in the previous 12 months
I wouldn't call this an ideologically neutral set of goals, no.
Target 16.1 seems fine, though I'm a little surprised they didn't use the "By 2030, end all [...]" phrasing.
What would you call it? I mean, none of it sounds like something you can make a argument that it shouldn't be achieved at all. In fact, I would question the ideology of someone that wouldn't want to achieve those goals.
That means, per IHRA, UNESCO is anti-semitic. Makes sense as anti-semitism is a problem worth tearing all post WW2 diplomacy and institutions up.
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https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000385118
(Breakdown by beneficiary country & program is at the bottom of the page.)