Palestinians moved a step closer to full membership of the UN cultural agency today when its board decided to let 193 member countries vote on admission this month.
The latest move in a Palestinian quest for statehood recognition drew a swift rebuke from US and Israeli envoys and a cool response from France.
In September, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas formally applied to the UN Security Council for full membership of the United Nations, ignoring a US warning that it would veto the move, as well as threats from members of the US Congress to restrict American aid to the Palestinians.
At the UN cultural agency Unesco, 40 representatives of the 58-member board voted in favour of putting the matter to a vote, with four - the United States, Germany, Romania and Latvia - voting against and 14 abstaining, a source at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation said.
That set the scene for a membership vote at Unesco's General Conference, a meeting that runs from October 25th to November 10th and involves all 193 members of the agency, based in Paris.
In a statement, US ambassador to Unesco David Killion urged all delegations to join the United States in voting "no".
Nimrod Barkan, Israel's ambassador to Unesco, said the move decision would harm the UN agency and not further the Palestinian desire for statehood.
"The problem is that the politicisation of Unesco is detrimental to the ability of the organisation to carry out its mandate," he said. "It is not too late to wake up and save this organisation from politicisation."
The Palestinians have had observer status at Unesco since 1974. In order to gain full membership, so-called "states" that are not members of the United Nations may be admitted to Unesco with a two-thirds majority of the General Conference.
It was not clear whether Palestine would need to be a recognised state for its Unesco bid to succeed.
Mr Barkan said he hoped there would be time between now and the General Conference to "undo" the decision given that there was no such entity as Palestine.
"They (executive board) have invented a non-existent entity and we have made it clear to the Director General and the Unesco apparatus that such a state does not exist and they have decided to ignore it."
An official at the Palestinian mission declined to comment.
To keep pressure on the United Nations, Abbas's Palestinian Authority has been looking at alternative institutions that may recognise their sought-after statehood status - a campaign triggered by a breakdown of peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel last year.
Yesterday, it won partnership status from the Council of Europe, European Union's main human rights body.
Reuters