President Donald Trump’s announcement that the United States will once again withdraw from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) should not come as a shock. Nor should it be seen as rash. In fact, it is long overdue. As Trump himself has recognized, and as decades of experience have proven, UNESCO has ceased to function as a forum for cultural preservation and intellectual advancement. Instead, it has become a global stage for politicized posturing, anti-Western propaganda, and above all, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic bias.

The State Department was clear in its assessment: “Continued involvement in UNESCO is not in the national interest of the United States.” That is a sober recognition of reality. Once lauded for preserving cultural treasures, the agency has long since abandoned its founding mission in favor of playing host to authoritarian regimes and radical ideologues eager to weaponize international institutions.

This is not the first time the United States has taken such a step. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan withdrew from UNESCO when it tried to impose a so-called “New World Information Order,” a thinly veiled attempt to subject free media to international oversight. George W. Bush temporarily rejoined, but in 2011, the Obama administration cut funding after the body admitted “Palestine” as a full member–despite the fact that the United States does not recognize Palestinian statehood. The return under President Biden was seen by many as a mistake. Now, Trump’s withdrawal marks the third time Washington has rejected UNESCO, and if history is a guide, it is likely the most justified of them all.

For Israel, the stakes are even clearer. Time and again, UNESCO has passed resolutions that distort Jewish history and delegitimize the Jewish state. Among its most offensive acts was the designation of Rachel’s Tomb–a sacred Jewish site for millennia–as a “mosque.” This was not a matter of scholarly debate or historical nuance; it was a political maneuver designed to erase the Jewish people’s connection to their own heritage. Such decisions are not anomalies but part of a pattern, one that The New York Post and other outlets have documented as a consistent campaign of bias against Israel.

UNESCO’s acceptance of “Palestine” as a member state was another blatant affront to both reality and diplomacy. By granting recognition unilaterally, the agency bypassed the only path to peace–the negotiating table between Israel and the Palestinian leadership. Instead, it rewarded the very strategy of obstruction and incitement that has prolonged conflict for decades. This act was not just anti-Israel; it was anti-peace.

President Trump’s withdrawal must also be understood in the broader context of his administration’s willingness to confront UN corruption and hypocrisy. From pulling the United States out of the UN’s Human Rights Council–which routinely gave dictatorships like Venezuela, China, and Cuba a platform to lecture democracies– to sanctioning Francesca Albanese, the UN “special rapporteur” on Palestine obsessed with slandering Israel, the administration has consistently called out the moral bankruptcy of Turtle Bay. Trump’s latest decision completes what might be called a “Turtle Bay trifecta”: exposing and rejecting those arms of the UN that have most egregiously betrayed their mandates.

Meanwhile, UNESCO has proven not only hostile to Israel but also servile to authoritarian powers. Its silence–or worse, endorsement–of China’s policies in Tibet and Xinjiang is unconscionable. When the agency lends legitimacy to Beijing’s cultural erasure of Tibetan Buddhism and its suppression of Uyghur Muslim traditions, it demonstrates that its concern for “heritage” is entirely selective. For UNESCO, Jewish history can be erased, Uyghur identity can be obliterated, and Tibetan culture can be suppressed, all while it cloaks itself in the language of “multiculturalism” and “justice.”

Trump aides have also rightly pointed to UNESCO’s embrace of a sweeping “woke” agenda that undermines American values. By prioritizing divisive diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, and by doubling down on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, the agency has veered far from its original charter. These programs effectively promote the deindustrialization of advanced economies, shackling nations like the United States and Israel, while funneling resources into corrupt regimes in the developing world. That is not cultural stewardship–it is economic sabotage.

The parallels to the Reagan era are striking. Just as Reagan saw the “New World Information Order” as a threat to free speech and American sovereignty , Trump recognizes that UNESCO has again become a platform for international elites to impose their ideological agenda on democratic nations.If the organization ever served a noble purpose, that purpose has been corrupted beyond repair.

Critics will argue that by withdrawing, America forfeits its influence. But influence over what? A body that denies Jewish history, legitimizes Palestinian rejectionism, and excuses Chinese repression is not one worth influencing. Instead, the United States–and Israel–are better off standing apart, signaling clearly that they will not legitimize institutions that are complicit in anti-Semitism and cultural erasure.

For Israel, the message is even more profound. Decades of UNESCO resolutions have sought to undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish state at every turn, painting Israel as an occupying power with no connection to its ancestral homeland. That campaign has failed, thanks in no small part to American backing. Trump’s decision reinforces a principle too often neglected in international diplomacy: that standing with Israel means rejecting the institutions that delegitimize it.

UNESCO is not merely broken–it is toxic. Its record of anti-Israel bias is long, consistent, and irrefutable. Its complicity in advancing authoritarian agendas is damning. And its adoption of ideological crusades dressed up as cultural policy betrays its founding ideals.

By withdrawing the United States, President Trump has again shown the courage to confront an institution many in the diplomatic establishment are too timid to challenge. America and Israel deserve better than UNESCO, and the world will not be poorer for its absence.

In fact, the world may finally be freer.