US and Israel 'punish' Palestine for Unesco membership

THE FALLOUT from Unesco's decision yesterday to admit Palestine as a full member has been swift and dramatic. Out of 173 votes cast on the issue, 107 were for Palestine's inclusion, and only 14 were actively against it.

Unesco (the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation) might seem an unimportant agency, given that its main duty is to preserve historical sites. But it was a symbolic victory for the Palestinian UN statehood bid, and it is deemed likely to have a domino effect. Here's how the world has reacted so far:

Israel speeds up settlement building
Israel is to "expedite" the illegal construction of 2,000 homes in settlements in and around East Jerusalem, reports The Guardian. The "punitive" measure was passed last night by eight senior Israeli cabinet officials. They have also banned Unesco missions to Israel, and imposed a temporary freeze on the tax revenues it collects for the West Bank's Palestinian Authority (PA), worth around £630m a year.

As a result, the PA will soon face problems paying its tens of thousands of employees, many of whom are involved in maintaining security in the West Bank. Israel is considering whether to make the move permanent.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague called Israel's decision "a serious blow" to the Quartet's effort to restart peace negotiations and the latest in "a series of provocative and unhelpful settlement announcements".

US withdraws financial support
The US has withdrawn this year’s tranche of financial support - $60m - from Unesco, representing a fifth of the body's annual budget. It was a decision forced by a binding congressional law from the 1990s that stipulates that Congress cannot fund any UN organisation that recognises Palestine as a state before an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is reached. The US state department called the Unesco vote outcome "regrettable and premature".

This will have far-reaching effects. The PA plans to apply for membership at several more UN bodies, all of whom run the risk of losing US funding if they admit Palestine. This will probably halt the Palestinian campaign for independent recognition, just as the legislation originally intended, notes Brett Schaefer, a UN affairs specialist at the Heritage Foundation, in a Foreign Policy blog.

Mystery cyber attack
Internet access across the West Bank and Gaza was cut off yesterday following an organised and sustained cyber attack on Palestinian servers. Authorities said they had no idea who was behind it or what the reason was, although they speculated that it was to do with the Unesco vote. "Since this morning all Palestinian IP addresses have come under attack from places across the world," Mashur Abu Daqqa told AFP yesterday afternoon. "I think from the manner of the attack and its intensity that there is a state behind it, and it is not spontaneous." ·