While most observers could heave a sigh of relief at the federal budget deal passed into law last week, some felt disappointed at the failure to retain in it a special line item relevant to northeast Louisiana. Such feeling is misplaced.
Last
summer, Sen. Mary
Landrieu in the Senate version of what would gravitate into an omnibus
appropriations bill got inserted a provision that would allocate $700,000
directly to the World Heritage Centre. That represented about one percent of
dues owed in arrears for the past year to the organization’s parent, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and
Cultural Organization, representing that portion for operating the WHC.
Despite being the chief architect
of UNESCO, the U.S. has had a contentious history with the organization. In
1984, it withdrew as the organization, run by a 21-member board, increasingly promoted
an anti-open society, anti-free enterprise agenda while tolerating administrative
waste and aggrandizement. Internal governance changes led to the U.S.
rejoining it in 2003, but in the interim laws had been passed that forbade the
U.S. to contribute money to organizations that recognized as a full member,
connoting that it is a state, what today is the Palestinian Authority.
The PA was set up by Israel under
international agreement to represent Palestinian Arab interests in its occupied
territories. These territories were originally to have become an Arab state
upon the creation of Israel in 1948 by international law, but over the course of
several wars started by Arab states on Israel, they came under Israeli sovereignty.
Israel has maintained that while these territories may have some internal
self-governance, it will not release its sovereignty over them until all
elements that control some autonomous governance over that territory, which
includes not only the PA but also military/terrorist organizations that the PA
has been unable to bring under its control, have agreed that they renounce
claims and violence to achieve them over territory designated as Israel’s in
the 1948 U.N. declaration.
Part of the U.S. objection to
allowing the PA to act as if a state by having it recognized as a state in international
organizations is that the U.S. before recognizing the PA as governing a state it
must conclude a treaty with Israel that establishes Israeli recognition of the
state. Israel has not done so because of insufficient security guarantees.
Essentially, it has two objections: first, that no absolutely
unambiguous indication exists that the operative covenant of the PA has
been altered to eliminate passages that call for the end of the State of
Israel; and, second, that the PA’s inability to control the military/terrorist
organizations that actually govern a good portion of the occupied territories
mean that any agreement solely with the PA does not contain sufficient security
guarantees to conclude a lasting “land for peace” deal.
Thus, the U.S. law remains in
effect and because of UNESCO’s treating the PA as a state, in late 2011 the
U.S. halted any dues payment to it. And as a result, it made for a complicating
factor when a year ago Louisiana’s Poverty
Point National Monument was put up for World Heritage Site status, so designated
by the WHC. It would join nearly a thousand others worldwide.
But policy-makers fear the WHC,
following the historical propensity for politics to intervene in U.N. decision-making,
will snub the nomination in retaliation. Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne
argues that more than prestige is involved in securing the designation; he also
asserts that in a similar instance for a previously-named American site, this
has caused an increase in visitation to it that undoubtedly also brings in more
state and local tax dollars.
Therefore, Landrieu got that
direct appropriation into the Senate’s version, the cause for which its
inclusion on the House side was taken up by Rep. Vance McAllister
upon his election. However, they failed as the bill which actually would become
the budget bill when introduced in the House in November did not contain this
provision. The reason why, according to editorializing appearing in the Baton Rouge/New Orleans Advocate’s news
article about this was that “some House Republicans refused to accept it for
anti-Palestinian political reasons.”
A more valid analysis than article
author Jordan Blum’s opinion inserted and masquerading as news is that House
members wished not to abandon principle that has guided sensible U.S. foreign
policy on the issue. Israel has remained a bulwark of democracy in the Middle
East and has acted as a true friend of America in the region. It would be
foolish to erode this position, which allowing U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund
UNESCO in any way would do.
Granted, this erosion in
practical terms would be extremely small. But the principle is far more
important. For one thing, by making one exception, it could
empower ways to get around the laws completely.
But, more importantly, to secure
peace and to promote U.S. interests in the region that ensure a maximal payoff,
Israel, which has tried for two decades through a serious of proposals that
have given Palestinian interests almost everything they have asked yet always were
rejected by them because of the security guarantees requested, must be backed
in all ways in acquiring this guarantee. Most importantly, that includes
discouraging any international arrangements that don’t adhere to a two-state
solution that is not to Israel’s security satisfaction.
Thus, it is inappropriate for
Landrieu, McAllister, or anybody else to try to go around the ban on funding
organizations that do not pursue this goal. It would be equally as
inappropriate for Louisiana to pay it (technically, Poverty Point is
administered by the state even with its national designation). Maybe this will
cost Poverty Point the designation and bring in fewer tourists than otherwise,
but following the principle behind it brings far more benefits to America as a
whole.
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