UNESCO chief says door open for Israel to come back

PARIS — UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay told Al-Monitor on Tuesday that the doors of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization remain open for Israel to come back, should it wish to do so, more than six years after it left. 

Speaking from her office in Paris, Azoulay said that that United States' expected return could prompt Israel to rethink its position on the issue.

"If Israel expresses its interest in coming back, it will be the same thing [as for the Americans]. The door is open," said Azoulay. "When Israel announced its departure from UNESCO at the end of 2017, just after the Americans, they said that it was not what they wanted, but they were following the Americans on that. Now, there is another government in Israel. It is for them to decide."

The United States is preparing to rejoin the Paris-based organization at the beginning of July. UNESCO's 193 member states are expected to vote either Thursday or Friday on Washington's request to rejoin the organization. 

Founded in 1945, UNESCO works with countries, civil society organizations and nongovernmental groups to promote international cooperation in education, arts, science and culture. Azoulay had served as France's cultural minister before her appointment as UNESCO chief. Her current term is her second in the position and it ends in 2025. 

Why Israel and the United States left

The relationship between the United States and UNESCO has been complicated for several years. In accordance with American law, the United States stopped paying its obligatory contribution to UNESCO in 2011, when the organization accepted Palestine as a member state. Then, in 2017, President Donald Trump announced the United States was withdrawing from the agency over multiple resolutions recognizing Jerusalem and Hebron sites as Palestinian heritage alone, citing a "continued anti-Israeli bias." By then, the American debt to UNESCO had reached $616 million. Israel followed suit shortly afterward. Both decisions went into effect at the end of 2018. 

Israel's relations with UNESCO have also been strained for many years, though it would probably not have left the agency without the American move. 

In October 2016, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed a UNESCO resolution on Jerusalem that denied Jewish links to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, recognizing only Muslim connections. “What’s next? A UNESCO decision denying the connection between peanut butter and jelly? Batman and Robin? Rock and roll?” he thundered. Education Minister Naftali Bennett suspended contacts between Israeli and UNESCO officials over the resolution.

In July 2017, Netanyahu blasted another UNESCO vote declaring the West Bank's Hebron Old City a Palestinian endangered world heritage site. “It is another delusional decision by UNESCO. This time they ruled the Tomb of the Patriarchs is a Palestinian site, meaning not a Jewish site, and it is in danger,” he stated.

Why the United States is returning 

Reversing the American decision has been a priority for Azoulay, who was elected to her position only days before the United States and Israel announced their withdrawals in 2017. She has met personally with several members of Congress and other US decision-makers to present the reforms she has introduced in UNESCO. While the organization is clearly motivated to recover the outstanding American dues, Azoulay is more focused on restoring US leadership as a founding and active member of the agency and distancing the organization from the political disputes that increasingly paralyzed it.

As such, she made a point of bringing back consultations and consensus decisions rather than divisive resolutions adopted by narrow votes. Azoulay worked with the Jordanians, the Israelis, the Palestinians and other stakeholders to formulate texts that all parties agreed on. 

"Until 2017 there were some resolutions, essentially concerning Jerusalem and the Middle East, that generated great divisions amid member states," Azoulay told Al-Monitor. "I then organized a mediation process with the vital support of Jordan, of the king himself, to discuss with the Palestinians, the Israelis and the Jordanians in order to find a formula that could satisfy all the parties. It was not an easy task."

In its letter to UNESCO in mid-June announcing the United States' desire to reenter the agency, the Biden administration noted, "Since our withdrawal from UNESCO on Dec. 31, 2018, we have noted UNESCO's efforts to implement key management and administrative reforms, as well as its focus on decreasing politicized debate, especially on Middle East issues."

Unlike the United States, Israel does not appear to be considering going back to UNESCO. Even if he wanted to follow the American example, Netanyahu’s coalition partners would block such a decision. On Monday, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich urged the government to formally object to the United States rejoining what he called a “history-distorting organization.”

Azoulay called Smotrich's comments "an issue of internal balance within the Israeli government.”

“It is up to them to define their position. The Americans have taken that step and made their position clear,” she added.