No winners in America’s long war with UN

The latest feud between the United States and the United Nations, culminating in the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), is another example of the White House attempting to monopolise righteousness in the world. President Donald Trump has decided that Unesco is biased against Israeli, a firm ally of the US, and is anyway nothing more that a burden on American taxpayers. This latter sentiment is particularly remarkable given that US investment in UN agencies is a tiny fraction of what’s spent on the military.
It is debatable whether Unesco has acted inappropriately, as the White House claims, by engaging in the sensitive politics of who controls Jerusalem. Surely, though, Washington – which has always played politics with issues that aren’t essentially political – doesn’t have the sole right to dish out politics and then undercut those who taken an opposing view. Its chief weapon in doing so is the allocation or withholding of financial aid. 
If there is bias within Unesco, what agency or organisation can claim to be bias-free? More importantly, should Unesco always have to toe the US line? Of course it shouldn’t. The citizens of the world depend on UN agencies to maintain independence of thought. If prejudice against Tel Aviv has crept in to Unesco policy, it will have to be expunged, but in the meantime the United States has no right bullying the United Nations in an attempt to bring it around to the American position. 
Trump is repeating the folly of one of his personal heroes. The Ronald Reagan administration withdrew the US from Unesco in 1983 over its perceived pro-Russian agenda. President George W Bush mended the break in 2002 – intriguingly during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. But Unesco drew Washington’s wrath again in 2011 by granting full voting membership to Palestine. The Barack Obama administration cut US funding to the organisation, in accordance with a law passed in the 1990s mandating the action if any UN agency cooperated with Palestine. Unesco responded by suspending US voting rights.
For Trump, the trigger was pulled in June when Unesco criticised Israel on the Jerusalem issue. US withdrawal will have repercussions both on agency funding – and its stature. Further criticism is certainly headed its way, and, as insincere and partisan as that criticism might be, it will serve to advance the Trump agenda.
High-level international politics has clearly clouded the work of this generally esteemed UN agency. At the same time, though, Trump’s action is sure to politicise the organisation even more. And Unesco’s mission is best pursued free of politics. Its fundamental aim is to foster world peace and security by promoting international collaboration through educational, scientific and cultural reforms. It seeks to 
universally increase respect for justice, the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms.
No one will argue that the agency has done meaningful work. Its 1978 Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice prompted South Africa, still under apartheid rule, to quit Unesco. Its Nubia Campaign in Egypt saved the famous Temple of Abu Simbel from being lost to damming in the Nile delta. Its World Heritage sites ring the globe, each one a cultural wonder worth preserving.
To continue such work, Unesco needs to steer clear of politics. This would be easier to do if influential nations stopped lighting political bonfires under it.