UNESCO is the first UN agency the Palestinians have sought to join as a full member since President Mahmoud Abbas applied for full membership of the United Nations on Sept. 23.
The diplomatic move is opposed by Israel and the United States, which also opposes the Palestinian bid for membership of UNESCO. But that won’t matter if the Palestinians win the support of two thirds of UNESCO’s 193 members at a general conference in Paris
“I expect that the voting will happen and that Palestine will get the number of votes required for membership,” Maliki told Reuters. “We have enough votes to get over the two-thirds barrier.”
Admission will be seen by the Palestinians as a moral victory in their bid for full UN membership.
Washington, which has the power to veto such applications, opposes the Palestinian bid for a full UN seat on the grounds it is unhelpful to efforts to revive peace talks with Israel, the last round of which broke down a year ago.
Israel’s closest international ally, the United States has said it will use its veto power in the Security Council to quash the bid for full UN membership, were it brought to a vote.
But UNESCO is one of the UN agencies the Palestinians can join as a full member regardless of their broader status at the United Nations, where they are currently classified as “an observer entity.”
“This success, if it is realized, and with this large number of votes, will give a great boost to the efforts that we are making to get the required vote in the United Nations,” Malki said in separate remarks to Voice of Palestine radio.
Palestinian success could bring a financial cost for UNESCO. Under US law, Palestine’s admission as a full UNESCO member would trigger a cutoff in US funding which accounts for 22 percent of the agency’s funding.
Israel has said the Palestinian bid would amount to politicization of the agency that would undermine its ability to carry out its mandate.
Malki said US officials cited the threat to UNESCO funding while seeking to dissuade the Palestinians from proceeding with their bid for membership.
“We made clear to them that any proposal must be based on a fundamental point: the acceptance of the membership of the state of Palestine in UNESCO,” Malki said, signalling the Palestinian determination to go ahead regardless.
Pressure from the United States and other world powers has in the past dissuaded the Palestinians from seeking the rights of full state members of UN agencies such as UNESCO.
The Palestinians’ determination to press ahead now signals a new approach in steering their quest for statehood, two decades since the beginning of the peace process which they hoped would bring them independence.
The United States says talks with Israel remain the only way for the Palestinians to reach their goal. The Palestinians, in turn, argue that talks have failed to bring them closer to their goal of independence in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem — land occupied by Israel in a 1967 war.
The Palestinians have yet to formally decide what they will do once their bid for full UN membership is decided. One option is to seek a resolution from the General Assembly that would upgrade their UN status to “a non-member state.”
