Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:

ZOA strongly praises President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for again withdrawing the United States from the antisemitic, anti-Israel so-called United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), effective on December 31, 2025. The U.S. State Department withdrawal announcement correctly explained that “UNESCO’s decision to admit the ‘State of Palestine’ as a Member State is highly problematic, contrary to U.S. policy, and contributed to the proliferation of anti-Israel rhetoric within the organization.”

Pres. Trump previously withdrew from UNESCO in 2017 due to UNESCO’s anti-Israel bias. But in 2023, then-Pres. Biden undid Pres. Trump’s important first-term effort to combat UNESCO’s antisemitism: Biden rejoined UNESCO and pledged to pay $600 million in “back dues.”

Shortly after President Trump’s second term began, in a February 3, 2025 Executive Order that ZOA strongly praised, Pres. Trump ordered a 90-day review of UNESCO, including “an analysis of any antisemitism or anti-Israel sentiment” within UNESCO.[1]

Pres. Trump’s decision to withdraw from UNESCO is well warranted. Indeed, ever since the non-existent “State of Palestine” was admitted to UNESCO in 2012, UNESCO has tried to erase the Jewish people’s connection to the Jewish people’s holiest sites, by renaming them “endangered” “Palestinian world heritage sites” in the “State of Palestine,” and renaming the sites themselves with Arabic names. UNESCO has libelously expunged the Jewish connections to: the Temple Mount (Judaism’s holiest site); Jerusalem (the Jewish people’s holiest city and capital); the over-3,000-year-old Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives; Jericho (the first city in Israel the Jewish people entered after wandering in the desert for forty years after the Exodus from Egypt); and Hebron (site of the Jewish people’s first purchase of land in Israel thousands of years ago, King David’s anointment and thousands of years of Jewish history), among others. 

In addition, UNESCO regurgitates on its website annual reports provided by the pretend and non-existent “State of Palestine” condemning and libeling Jews. For instance, the 2024 “Hebron/Al Khalil report on the state of conservation of the property” claims that “illegal Israeli settlements and archaeological excavations” [meaning, Jews living in their own ancient lawful Jewish homeland including in Hebron, and careful, lawful Israeli archeology work] “endangers” the “Palestinian” site of “Hebron/Al Khalil.” It’s a total inversion of reality.

ZOA has repeatedly condemned UNESCO’s outrages. See, e.g., ZOA Condemns UNESCO for Anti-Semitic Erasure of Jewish People’s History in Hebron, July 7, 2017; ZOA Condemns UNESCO Resolution Denying Jewish Identity & Name of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, Oct. 26, 2016; UNESCO Lies About Mount of Olives “Jewish Fake Graves” While Thousands Gather for All-Day Inaugural Jerusalem Passover Event, Apr. 28, 2016.

ZOA Coalition also initiated a resolution, which was overwhelming passed by the World Zionist Congress, condemning UNESCO “for denying the millennia-long Jewish connection to Jewish holy sites, including the Temple Mount, the Kotel, and Hebron, including placing Hebron on UNESCO’s list of endangered sites.” (See World Zionist Congress Adopts ZOA’s Strong/Important Pro-Israel Resolutions, Nov. 6, 2019.)

There are still more outrages by UNESCO. UNESCO joined the rest of the UN’s defamation of Israel after October 7. UNESCO resolutions cited “UNICEF data” [the data is actually recycled, exaggerated Hamas claims] about damaged schools in Gaza; praised UNRWA; and complained about several UNRWA alleged “educators” being killed after October 7, etc. UNESCO conveniently never mentioned that UNRWA schools doubled as rocket storage and launching pads; that a dozen or more UNRWA “teachers” were perpetrators of the October 7 massacres of Jews, that high percentages of UNRWA teachers are Hamas members; and that UNRWA schools teach hatred towards Jews, Christians and Israel.

There’s still more: UNESCO’s listing for “Ancient Jericho” in the “State of Palestine” links to the “Ministry of Tourism of the State of Palestine” website. The linked website contains a “History of Modern Palestine” which libelously asserts that “In the 19th century, the Zionist movement began efforts to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, despite lacking historical justification,” and then praises “Palestinian resistance” in “1921, 1929, and 1936-39” and Intifadas – all instances of Arabs slaughtering Jews in major massacres.

Even for those sites that UNESCO acknowledges are in Israel, UNESCO habitually omits the site’s Jewish history and connection. For instance, UNESCO’s statement about Acre (Akko)’s significance fails to mention any Jewish connection (e.g., the massacre of 2,000 Jews in Acre in C.E. 66 – almost 2,000 years ago; Acre’s ancient synagogue; the Temple menorah bread stamp archeological find from the Byzantine era indicating that a kosher bakery existed for Akko’s Jewish community; the Irgun’s dramatic 1947 rescue of Jewish prisoners held by the British in Akko prison; etc.). UNESCO’s statement about Degania & Nahalal states that they were part of a socialist kibbutzim movement that was a modern manifestation of the ideas of Marx and Engels. UNESCO omits these locations’ Jewish identity, that Jews founded Degania in 1909 on land purchased by the Jewish National Fund, that Degania’s Jewish residents bravely repelled repeated Arab and Bedouin attacks and Syrian attacks in 1948, and that Nahalal is a Jewish moshav founded in 1921. In a rare instance, UNESCO’s world heritage site listing for “Early Synagogues of the Galilee, UNESCO mentions a Jewish connection –– but then refers to them as “Palestinian synagogues.”

In sum, the record is clear. President Trump once again did the right thing and deserves enormous praise and appreciation for announcing our nation’s departure from UNESCO.

[1]  In the same February 3, 2025 order, Pres. Trump withdrew U.S. participation in and defunded two other extremely anti-Israel UN agencies: UNRWA and UNHRC; and noted that UNRWA has been “infiltrated by members of groups long designated by the Secretary of State as foreign terrorist organizations [Hamas, PIJ], and UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.”