The US has announced that it will leave the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) on 31 December 2026 over its inclusion of Palestine as a member state.
The State Department announced on Tuesday that Washington viewed Palestine’s inclusion as “highly problematic”, and a decision which had in turn led to the “proliferation of anti-Israel rhetoric”.
The US was angered in 2011 when Unesco members granted Palestine full membership in the body, despite opposition from its ally Israel.
Washington opposes any move by UN bodies to recognise Palestine as a state, believing that this must wait until a negotiated Middle East peace deal.
“Unesco works to advance divisive social and cultural causes and maintains an outsized focus on the UN’s sustainable development goals, a globalist, ideological agenda for international development at odds with our America First foreign policy,” the State Department’s spokesperson, Tammy Bruce, said.
