US loses UNESCO voting right

American influence in culture, science and education around the world took a high-profile blow Friday after the U.S. automatically lost voting rights at UNESCO, after missing a crucial deadline to repay its debt to the world’s cultural agency. 

The U.S. hasn’t paid its dues to the Paris-based U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in protest over the decision by world governments to make Palestine a UNESCO member in 2011. Israel suspended its dues at the same time. 

Under UNESCO rules, the U.S. had until Friday morning to resume funding or explain itself, or it automatically loses its vote. A UNESCO official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue, said nothing was received from either the U.S. or Israel. 

The suspension of U.S. contributions, which account for $80 million a year 22 percent of UNESCO’s overall budget brought the agency to the brink of a financial crisis and forced it to cut or scale back American-led initiatives such as Holocaust education and tsunami research over the past two years. 

It has worried many in Washington that the U.S. is on track to becoming a toothless UNESCO member with a weakened voice in international programmes fighting extremism through education, and promoting gender equality and press freedoms. 

‘We won’t be able to have the same clout,’ said Phyllis Magrab, the Washington-based U.S. National Commissioner for UNESCO. ‘In effect, we (now won’t) have a full tool box. We’re missing our hammer.’ 

The UNESCO tension has prompted new criticism of U.S. laws that force an automatic funding cutoff for any U.N. agency with Palestine as a member. The official list of countries that lose their votes was expected to be read aloud on Saturday before the entire UNESCO general conference. 

Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO, Nimrod Barkan, told The Associated Press that his country supported the Unites States’ decision, ‘objecting to the politicization of UNESCO, or any international organization, with the accession of a non-existing country like Palestine.’  The concern over UNESCO is resonating in the US Congress. Agencies