While Arabs in Gaza have been raining rockets and missiles on the southern part of Israel causing death and destruction, their counterparts in Judea and Samaria (erroneously called the West Bank--all of Israel is on the west bank of the Jordan River) were pursuing a complementary agenda; no peace negotiations but the elimination of Israel through manipulating international agencies.

Complicit in this, obligingly encouraging the demise of a member state, UNESCO, United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization, on Monday voted to admit the non country of Palestine into membership just a few weeks after the latter's failed move to join the UN as a member state.

As a result of this vote the US promptly announced it would not continue funding UNESCO, slightly less than a quarter of its budget, as required by law.

Department spokesman Victoria Nuland told reporters that the Obama administration would not make a planned $60 million payment to the agency due this month.

(snip)

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said she supports a cutoff of aid as mandated under U.S. law.

"Today's reckless action by UNESCO is anti-Israel and anti-peace," she said in a statement. "It rewards the Palestinian leadership's dangerous scheme to bypass negotiations with Israel and seek recognition of a self-declared 'Palestinian state,' and takes us further from peace in the Middle East."

"We recognize that this action today will complicate our ability to support UNESCO's programs," said David T. Killion, the U.S. ambassador to UNESCO, who characterized the Palestinian bid as "counterproductive" to pursuing peace in the Middle East.

But this vote shouldn't have been a surprise; last year, in a prelude to Monday's vote, UNESCO twisted history by denying the thousands year Jewish presence in the area, stating that Rachel's Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs were mosques, not important and holy Jewish heritage sites.

Naturally UNESCO officials complained about the US following their own laws, whining

UNESCO's ¬director-general, Irina Bokova, appealed to the United States not to punish the organization for the decision of the agency's executive board, which is comprised of representatives of UNESCO member states. In a letter to The Washington Post, she said UNESCO "supports many causes in line with U.S. security interests" from Afghanistan to Iraq, where "we are helping governments and communities prepare for life after the withdrawal of U.S. military forces."

"The issue of Palestinian membership should not be allowed to derail these initiatives, which go far beyond the politics of the Middle East," she added, citing UNESCO's work in tsunami early warning in the Caribbean and the Pacific. "None of this is in the interest of UNESCO. Nor do I believe it's in the interest of Americans."

Wrong Ms. Bokova; knowing full well what it was doing, UNESCO's executive board deliberately punished its own organization, derailing its own interests and its few, very few, admirable initiatives, in pursuit of its own evil initiative. And that's who you should criticize. It deserves to be defunded, not only by the US but by all countries with any sense of decency.

Obeying the mandates of their well publicized law, is definitely in the interests of Americans.

Congratulations to the US State Department and the Obama administration for doing so; hopefully they won't back down.