Unesco Shmunesco

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/17/opinion/unesco-united-states-withdrawal-israel.html

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Last Thursday, the United States announced its intention to withdraw from Unesco, the United Nations educational and cultural agency. The American government explained its decision to withdraw from the organization as a response to its “anti-Israel bias.” The United States, a spokeswoman said, does not want to pay the hundreds of millions of dollars that it owes to Unesco until the organization’s anti-Israel bias comes to an end.

This should have been music to Israel’s ears, right? Not necessarily, even though Israel promptly announced that it would pull out of Unesco on the United States’ heels.

There’s no doubt that the Trump administration is right about Unesco’s unhealthy attitude toward the Jewish state. The organization’s shameful record makes clear that it is obsessed with Israel: Unesco has passed resolutions with the sole aim of rejecting the historic connection between Jews and the Holy Land, including denying Jewish ties to the Temple Mount. In July, it declared the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, an important holy site for Jews, as a Palestinian World Heritage site “in danger” — presumably from Israel.

Israel has, appropriately and almost unanimously, been incensed: It called Unesco “shameful and anti-Semitic” and described its decisions as “bizarre and irrelevant.” In July, the Israeli government decided to cut $1 million from its payments to the United Nations in retaliation.

Several United Nations agencies have similar anti-Israel tendencies. In fact, the entire United Nations is biased against Israel. It tends to pass one-sided resolutions when Israel is engaged in a conflict; it pays constant attention to Israel and its supposed misbehavior, while other countries, guilty of much worse, barely get mentioned for censure.

This is hardly a secret. In March, the deputy assistant secretary of state said that the United States is “deeply troubled” by the United Nations Human Rights Council’s “consistent unfair and unbalanced focus on one democratic country, Israel.” Nikki Haley, the American ambassador to the United Nations, has vowed “to stand up to the U.N.’s anti-Israel bias.” Even Ban Ki-moon, the organization’s previous secretary general, acknowledged the bias against Israel in his final speech before the Security Council: “Decades of political maneuverings have created a disproportionate volume of resolutions, reports and conferences criticizing Israel,” he said.

None of this is new. The United Nations’ hypocrisy and bias has been a constant irritation since Israel was founded. It was David Ben Gurion, the country’s founding prime minister, who coined a derisive phrase, “Um Shmum,” that remains popular in Israel today. (“Um” is the Hebrew pronunciation of the United Nation’s initials; the “sh” prefix is a way of signaling dismissal.) Attitudes haven’t changed much since then: In 2009, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued that “the jury is still out on the United Nations” and that “recent signs are not encouraging.”

And yet despite all this, Israel still chooses to be a part of the United Nations. Even amid Unesco’s repeated, ridiculous resolutions, the Israeli government resisted the temptation to withdraw from the organization. Israeli policy toward Unesco was — like its policy toward the rest of the United Nations — pretty simple: Remain a member and fight as hard as you can. Be a player. Do not give Israel’s foes what they want, which is Israel cast aside and ostracized by the international community.

Sometimes (though admittedly not often), Israeli even has the chance to achieve something at the United Nations. For example, just before the Trump administration announced its plan to withdraw, Unesco delayed a vote on an anti-Israel resolution. It might not sound like much, but Israel’s envoy to Unesco described it as an “achievement” that was “the result of three years of exhausting, frustrating and difficult diplomatic work.”

Enter President Trump. An Israeli strategy 70 years in the making is suddenly severely undermined. (According to news reports, the American decision was made without consulting the Israeli government.) Mr. Netanyahu then announced that when the United States quits Unesco, Israel will follow suit. It has no alternative. Israel can’t possibly let the United States leave an organization over anti-Israel bias and still remain a member itself. At the same time, Israel also can’t appear ungrateful toward the United States and hint that leaving Unesco might not be the best move for Israel.

But the truth is, Israel would prefer to continue its longtime strategy at the United Nations: staying a member and fighting for Israel’s interests. Israel would rather work on getting Unesco to improve — become a little less hostile, and even more so, less obsessed with Israel. But now that option seems to be in danger.

It’s possible that the election of the former French culture minister, a Jewish woman who has relatives in Israel, to lead Unesco might be a signal that the agency will improve. Or, perhaps, a recognition on the part of other Unesco members that the Trump administration won’t tolerate their anti-Israel shenanigans will sober up the organization.

But this can work only if Mr. Trump’s motivation for quitting Unesco is truly to curb its anti-Israel bias. If, on the other hand, his main motivation is to free the United States from paying for something he does not value, then he hasn’t helped Israel. He has hurt it by forcing it out against its will.