[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 293-294]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      OPPOSITION TO UNESCO FUNDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, last November, the U.S. Ambassador to 
the United Nations, Samantha Power, came to meet with my colleagues and 
me who serve on the Foreign Affairs Committee. In that meeting, 
Ambassador Power told us that despite U.S. law that prohibits any 
funding to UNESCO because of its decision to admit a nonexistent state 
of Palestine to its membership, the administration was going to make it 
a priority to seek waiver authority to continue U.S. taxpayer funding 
to UNESCO.
  Indeed, this is coming to fruition. There is a congressional push by 
some to grant the administration this waiver or to seek other ways to 
get around this prohibition.
  I am here today to voice my unconditional and unyielding opposition 
to this push, and I urge my colleagues to join me in removing that in 
the budget that will be before us soon and not allow the administration 
to yet again circumvent U.S. law and to throw away hundreds of millions 
of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money.
  The administration is seeking to not only restore $80 million in 
taxpayer funds to UNESCO for this fiscal year, but it is also seeking 
to pay nearly $250 million more in arrears--dues--that we owed to 
UNESCO, an agency that has an anti-U.S. and an anti-Israel agenda.
  If we restore funding to UNESCO, we are tacitly agreeing with their 
support for Abbas, the PA, the PLO, the nonexistent state of Palestine, 
and the U.N. scheme to undermine the peace process by granting de facto 
recognition to a Palestinian state without it first coming to an 
agreement with Israel to resolve this long conflict.
  A vote to restore any U.S. funding to UNESCO or to give the 
administration any waiver authority to circumvent the existing laws 
that prohibit U.S. funding to UNESCO would not only undermine our 
credibility and set a dangerous precedent; it would further embolden an 
already intransigent Abu Mazen and Palestinian Authority.

[[Page 294]]

  Why do I say ``intransigent''? Because even as we sit here, Mr. 
Speaker, reports indicate that a major holdup in the peace negotiations 
between Secretary Kerry, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority is the 
refusal by Abbas and the PA to recognize Israel as the Jewish State of 
Israel. Is that the kind of member that we want to be associated with 
in UNESCO--one that doesn't even recognize the identity of another 
state? And not just another state, but our closest ally.
  I know that UNESCO is riddled with rogue regimes amongst its ranks, 
including the likes of Cuba, where the callous, brutal, and murderous 
Castro regime has been repressing the rights of 11 million Cubans for 
over half a century; and Syria, where the tyrant Assad has caused the 
deaths of over 130,000 people and brought the Middle East to the very 
brink.
  But if we restore U.S. funding to UNESCO, we are essentially saying 
that this is okay, and, oh, by the way, why not add one more in Abbas? 
There has been a recent spate of terrorist activity against Israel; and 
rather than act like a true leader that seeks peace and a partner in a 
negotiated peace settlement, Abbas was definitely silent when it came 
time to denounce these acts of terror.
  The powers that be at UNESCO don't seem to mind this at all. But not 
us, Mr. Speaker. We are better than that. We aren't about to trade in 
our credibility and our principles as a country for a plaque and 
platitudes for this circumvention. We know that if we concede to UNESCO 
and restore any funding, we would be making a grave mistake, and also 
wasting hundreds of millions of our constituents' dollars on this anti-
U.S. agenda.
  I will continue to fight this push to restore funding to UNESCO in 
any way, and I will continue to rally my colleagues to join me in this 
fight.

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