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US ready to rejoin anti-Israel UN agency that denies Jewish ties to Western Wall

Six years after the Trump administration withdrew from the UN cultural agency over its anti-Israel bias, the Biden administration plans to rejoin it.

By World Israel News Staff

The U.S. has informed UNESCO that it plans to rejoin the anti-Israel cultural agency six years after the Trump administration left it, the Axios news site reported Sunday.

The U.S. pulled out of UNESCO in October 2017, with Israel shortly following suit, saying the move reflected “U.S. concerns with mounting arrears at UNESCO, the need for fundamental reform in the organization, and continuing anti-Israel bias at UNESCO.”

Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama stopped paying UNESCO dues in 2011 after the agency granted “Palestine” full membership.

Among other things, UNESCO notoriously passed a number of resolutions that denied any Jewish ties to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest sites.

The organization also rejected Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. In 2017, UNESCO declared Hebron an endangered Palestinian world heritage site, even though that city, home to the Cave of the Patriarchs, is also considered one of the holiest to Judaism. At the time, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the move, calling it “yet another delusional decision by UNESCO.”

In November 2021, the Biden administration urged Israel to rejoin UNESCO.