Award-winning investigative journalist Claudia Rosett’s latest piece, “Let the French Pay for UNESCO,” exposes UNESCO’s escalating PR blitz aimed at collecting now-frozen U.S. millions:
If UNESCO’s officials, in their lavish Paris headquarters, need the money, why not tell them to go lobby the French? France was among the member states that voted in 2011 to admit the Palestinians.
It’s actually much worse that that.
The French didn’t merely vote Yes to that fateful Palestinian resolution — thereby triggering a total American funding cut of $80 million as mandated by U.S. law — but they aggressively and successfully lobbied other countries to vote Yes as well.
And that is still nothing to what the French did the following year.
In October 2012, in a completely surprising yet welcome move, Russia, apparently annoyed with Palestinian overreaching, led a majority of countries to postpone a raft of anti-Israel resolutions. The Palestinians were shocked and outraged.
The tally of the Executive Board was 28 votes in favour of the postponement, 23 against and 4 abstentions. Even China, Chavez and Assad (who owes Moscow a thing or two) joined democracies in supporting the eminently pro-Zionist move:
[T]he following States voted for the adjournment of the debate: Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Grenada, Haiti, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Malawi, Mexico, Monaco, Montenegro, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, Saint Lucia, Slovakia, Spain, Syrian Arab Republic, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United States of America, Uzbekistan and Venezuela.
Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Congo, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Ecuador, France, Gambia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Zimbabwe.
Having assessed the dangers and the repercussions of the situation on Africa, and on Mali in particular, as well as on the rest of the world, the Jury appreciated the solidarity shown by France to the peoples of Africa.
That’s right: France, the only remaining colonial armed force in the continent, invaded and occupied an African country and went about bombing Islamic extremists to pieces. That the war is just is beside the point. It is that they managed to do all of these things and, with military operations still underway, got a major UN agency to give them a peace prize for it, which is simply extraordinaire.
