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Obama withdrew all US funds from UNESCO in 2011 as well, due to Palestine being admitted in. This isn't anything particularly noteworthy, just more capitulating

Obama withdrew all US funds from UNESCO in 2011 as well, due to Palestine being admitted in. This isn't anything particularly noteworthy, just more capitulating to Israel, which is annoying.

pkilgore 1y ago
Obama didn't do anything (other than follow the law at the time): https://web.archive.org/web/20141224180231/https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/10/25/will-congresss-defunding-of-the-u-n-over-palestine-hurt-u-s-goals-around-the-world/ https://web.archive.org/web/20141224180231/https://foreignpo...
- tolerance 1y ago
  So would it be fair to say that this is just a reiteration of a 30+ year-long trend. Edit: 40+ year-long trend? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44648359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44648359 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000012506323&seq=1 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000012506323&seq=...
- hackyhacky 1y ago
  The is a good point: the decision was made by Congress, not by Obama. Although I disagree with that decision, that is the correct way to make it. Now, Trump is withdrawing unilaterally, without Congressional approval. Remember when presidents followed the law?
  - CWuestefeld 1y ago
    I've been complaining about the increasing power being ceded to the Presidency, like, forever now. This isn't specifically a GOP or DEM thing, it's been happening consistently at least since FDR, and probably even beyond that. That said, the one area where the Constitution really does give the President a fairly free hand is in foreign policy.
    - nonethewiser 1y ago
      And congress increasingly wanting to do nothing.
      - CWuestefeld 1y ago
        I think it's a little more subtle. It's not that they want to do nothing. It's that they're terrified of being seen to have done something, if for some reason that thing turns out to be a mistake. For all the talk about wanting to do things scientifically, there's a remarkable lack of willingness to actually experiment. If a failed experiment is fatal, then we'll never do anything, bad or good.
  - saelthavron 1y ago
    Was the law repealed?
  - nonethewiser 1y ago
    You seem to be conflating two things. That Obama was bound by law to withhold funds, and that the president cannot leave UNESCO unilaterally. The president in fact can just withdraw as the commander in chief and head of foreign policy, and they have withdrawn already in 1984 (Reagan) and 2017 (Trump).
- cooper_ganglia 1y ago
  Sure, it was a Democrat president enforcing laws passed by a Democrat-controlled House and Senate in 1990 and 1994, under at least one Democrat president. There are no real "sides" when it comes to the U.S. and Israel. Every party bends the knee and kisses the wall. It’s one big club, and we’re not in it.
  - csours 1y ago
    Excuses and explanations can feel the same. I do not intend this to be an excuse, but a partial explanation. Before the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, there was a feeling of a possibility of peace in some form; in this context, those laws could be viewed as the stick of a carrot and stick approach. At this point in time, you can make your own determination about how that has worked out.
    - amendegree 1y ago
      Because Israel alone bears all the responsibility for the lack of peace in the region… it’s not like these people are perpetually looking for war
  - rafram 1y ago
    > It’s one big club, and we’re not in it. I’m not sure what you’re trying to imply here, but like it or not, most Americans do support Israel.
    - jpadkins 1y ago
      it's a reference to a famous George Carlin skit.
    - cooper_ganglia 1y ago
      That's no longer true, nor should it be: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/04/08/how-americans-view-israel-and-the-israel-hamas-war-at-the-start-of-trumps-second-term/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/04/08/how-ameri... From the article: >The public’s views of Israel have turned more negative over the past three years. More than half of U.S. adults (53%) now express an unfavorable opinion of Israel, up from 42% in March 2022 It turns out when you invade a country and commit a genocide, you become less popular. Putin figured that out. Hitler figured that out. Netanyahu’s still mulling it over.
Tiktaalik 1y ago
Thanks for reminding us that Obama also sucked.
braiamp 1y ago
"In 2011, the United States stopped funding Unesco because of what was then a forgotten, 15-year-old amendment mandating a complete cutoff of American financing to any United Nations agency that accepts Palestine as a full member. Various efforts by President Barack Obama to overturn the legal restriction narrowly failed in Congress, and the United States lost its vote at the organization after two years of nonpayment, in 2013." https://web.archive.org/web/20220503183152/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/us/politics/trump-unesco-withdrawal.html https://web.archive.org/web/20220503183152/https://www.nytim...
- tavavex 1y ago
  > 15-year-old amendment mandating a complete cutoff of American financing to any United Nations agency that accepts Palestine as a full member As a non-American, doesn't this seem a little ridiculous to some people in the US? This screams of a kind of melodramatic, overdone theatrics that the US doesn't seem to do to anyone else. I get that the US has a lot of Israeli money/investments/customers and extremely religious people, but even then, why is it going this far to enshrine their relations to specific states in their laws? It ends up coming off as the US bowing on their knees to relatively minor nations on the other side of the world.
  - paulddraper 1y ago
    I think it has more to do with terrorism and anti-Western sentiment than with religion. I expect the same treatment for Iran and North Korea.
  - unclad5968 1y ago
    Not really. It's just the way it works here. If it's enshrined in law, it makes it harder for one person or small group to make a unilateral decision, similar to how things are happening here now.
  - naniwaduni 1y ago
    Not really? The US does its diplomacy substantially by shuffling money around. Writing a conditional into law is how a legislative body expresses a formal commitment. That's business as usual. The continued existence of these particular laws in 2011 was, in any case, more a convenient excuse to do something they didn't not want to do anyway, than something that couldn't be changed if political will went the other way. It's just a bit stronger of a commitment than the sitting president's whim, which is also a thing that happens. Perhaps the disconnect is that the US actively engages in foreign policy at all?
EasyMark 1y ago
I really wish we weren't a puppet state of Israel. What they're doing in Palestine currently turns my stomach. It's one thing to get your people back after the horrible attack from Hamas, it's another to mow down people who are just trying to get food with a submachine gun.
- insane_dreamer 1y ago
  > mow down people who are just trying to get food with a submachine gun not to mention that Hamas was supposed already destroyed 6 months ago
JamesAdir 1y ago
Well, as long as Israel is fighting Iran's terrorist proxies, the U.S. must stand by her.

Obama withdrew all US funds from UNESCO in 2011 as well, due to Palestine being admitted in. This isn't anything particularly noteworthy, just more capitulating to Israel, which is annoying.

pkilgore 1y ago

Obama didn't do anything (other than follow the law at the time): https://web.archive.org/web/20141224180231/https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/10/25/will-congresss-defunding-of-the-u-n-over-palestine-hurt-u-s-goals-around-the-world/ https://web.archive.org/web/20141224180231/https://foreignpo...

tolerance 1y ago
So would it be fair to say that this is just a reiteration of a 30+ year-long trend. Edit: 40+ year-long trend? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44648359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44648359 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000012506323&seq=1 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000012506323&seq=...
hackyhacky 1y ago
The is a good point: the decision was made by Congress, not by Obama. Although I disagree with that decision, that is the correct way to make it. Now, Trump is withdrawing unilaterally, without Congressional approval. Remember when presidents followed the law?
- CWuestefeld 1y ago
  I've been complaining about the increasing power being ceded to the Presidency, like, forever now. This isn't specifically a GOP or DEM thing, it's been happening consistently at least since FDR, and probably even beyond that. That said, the one area where the Constitution really does give the President a fairly free hand is in foreign policy.
  - nonethewiser 1y ago
    And congress increasingly wanting to do nothing.
    - CWuestefeld 1y ago
      I think it's a little more subtle. It's not that they want to do nothing. It's that they're terrified of being seen to have done something, if for some reason that thing turns out to be a mistake. For all the talk about wanting to do things scientifically, there's a remarkable lack of willingness to actually experiment. If a failed experiment is fatal, then we'll never do anything, bad or good.
- saelthavron 1y ago
  Was the law repealed?
- nonethewiser 1y ago
  You seem to be conflating two things. That Obama was bound by law to withhold funds, and that the president cannot leave UNESCO unilaterally. The president in fact can just withdraw as the commander in chief and head of foreign policy, and they have withdrawn already in 1984 (Reagan) and 2017 (Trump).
cooper_ganglia 1y ago
Sure, it was a Democrat president enforcing laws passed by a Democrat-controlled House and Senate in 1990 and 1994, under at least one Democrat president. There are no real "sides" when it comes to the U.S. and Israel. Every party bends the knee and kisses the wall. It’s one big club, and we’re not in it.
- csours 1y ago
  Excuses and explanations can feel the same. I do not intend this to be an excuse, but a partial explanation. Before the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, there was a feeling of a possibility of peace in some form; in this context, those laws could be viewed as the stick of a carrot and stick approach. At this point in time, you can make your own determination about how that has worked out.
  - amendegree 1y ago
    Because Israel alone bears all the responsibility for the lack of peace in the region… it’s not like these people are perpetually looking for war
- rafram 1y ago
  > It’s one big club, and we’re not in it. I’m not sure what you’re trying to imply here, but like it or not, most Americans do support Israel.
  - jpadkins 1y ago
    it's a reference to a famous George Carlin skit.
  - cooper_ganglia 1y ago
    That's no longer true, nor should it be: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/04/08/how-americans-view-israel-and-the-israel-hamas-war-at-the-start-of-trumps-second-term/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/04/08/how-ameri... From the article: >The public’s views of Israel have turned more negative over the past three years. More than half of U.S. adults (53%) now express an unfavorable opinion of Israel, up from 42% in March 2022 It turns out when you invade a country and commit a genocide, you become less popular. Putin figured that out. Hitler figured that out. Netanyahu’s still mulling it over.

Tiktaalik 1y ago

Thanks for reminding us that Obama also sucked.

braiamp 1y ago

"In 2011, the United States stopped funding Unesco because of what was then a forgotten, 15-year-old amendment mandating a complete cutoff of American financing to any United Nations agency that accepts Palestine as a full member. Various efforts by President Barack Obama to overturn the legal restriction narrowly failed in Congress, and the United States lost its vote at the organization after two years of nonpayment, in 2013." https://web.archive.org/web/20220503183152/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/us/politics/trump-unesco-withdrawal.html https://web.archive.org/web/20220503183152/https://www.nytim...

tavavex 1y ago
> 15-year-old amendment mandating a complete cutoff of American financing to any United Nations agency that accepts Palestine as a full member As a non-American, doesn't this seem a little ridiculous to some people in the US? This screams of a kind of melodramatic, overdone theatrics that the US doesn't seem to do to anyone else. I get that the US has a lot of Israeli money/investments/customers and extremely religious people, but even then, why is it going this far to enshrine their relations to specific states in their laws? It ends up coming off as the US bowing on their knees to relatively minor nations on the other side of the world.
- paulddraper 1y ago
  I think it has more to do with terrorism and anti-Western sentiment than with religion. I expect the same treatment for Iran and North Korea.
- unclad5968 1y ago
  Not really. It's just the way it works here. If it's enshrined in law, it makes it harder for one person or small group to make a unilateral decision, similar to how things are happening here now.
- naniwaduni 1y ago
  Not really? The US does its diplomacy substantially by shuffling money around. Writing a conditional into law is how a legislative body expresses a formal commitment. That's business as usual. The continued existence of these particular laws in 2011 was, in any case, more a convenient excuse to do something they didn't not want to do anyway, than something that couldn't be changed if political will went the other way. It's just a bit stronger of a commitment than the sitting president's whim, which is also a thing that happens. Perhaps the disconnect is that the US actively engages in foreign policy at all?

EasyMark 1y ago

I really wish we weren't a puppet state of Israel. What they're doing in Palestine currently turns my stomach. It's one thing to get your people back after the horrible attack from Hamas, it's another to mow down people who are just trying to get food with a submachine gun.

insane_dreamer 1y ago
> mow down people who are just trying to get food with a submachine gun not to mention that Hamas was supposed already destroyed 6 months ago

JamesAdir 1y ago

Well, as long as Israel is fighting Iran's terrorist proxies, the U.S. must stand by her.