Why the U.S withdrew from UNESCO?

a United Nations organization that helps preserve historical and cultural sites worldwide, attracted chatter and questions online when the U.S. announced Thursday that it would officially leave the organization at the end of 2018.

In a statement, the U.S. State Department cited an “anti-Israel bias” as one of the reasons to withdraw and move the nation’s status to that of a “permanent observer.”

“This decision was not taken lightly,” state department spokeswoman, Heather Nauert, said in a statement, “and [it] reflects U.S. concerns with mounting arrears at UNESCO, the need for fundamental reform in the organization, and continuing anti-Israel bias at UNESCO.”

UNESCO’s director general, Irina Bokova, called the decision “deeply regrettable.”

Why is the U.S. withdrawing from UNESCO?

The state department cites “anti-Israel bias” as one of the reasons, but the roots of the decision date back to the 1990s when Congress passed a law to cut off funding from U.N. agencies that accept Palestine as a member nation.

In 2011, UNESCO welcomed Palestine as its 195th member, The New York Times reported at the time, and the U.S. effectively stopped making payments — which were about $70 million a year — to the organization.

The U.S. remained a member but did not pay its dues — about $600 million, a sum owed since 2011, also known as arrears, The Times reported on Thursday. “Mounting arrears” was also cited by the state department as one other reason why the U.S. withdrew from UNESCO.

Again? When did the U.S. withdraw from UNESCO before?

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan called on the U.S. to withdraw from UNESCO, according to Foreign Policy, over concerns of corruption and an ideological tilt toward the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.

President George W. Bush put the U.S. back in the organization in 2002.

What does the State Department mean by ‘anti-Israel bias’ at UNESCO?

Since taking office, President Donald Trump and his administration have taken a strong pro-Israel position in the United Nations. In February, after Nikki Haley was appointed U.S. ambassador to the U.N., she took a podium to declare the United States’ “ironclad” support for Israel.

“I’m here to underscore the ironclad support of the United States for Israel,” Haley said in February. “I’m here to emphasize that the United States is determined to stand up to the U.N.’s anti-Israel bias.”

Tension between Palestine and Israel has even become a sore point within the U.N., particularly at UNESCO where support for Palestinians is seen as a form of favoritism.

In 2015, according to The New York Times, UNESCO criticized Israel for “aggressions” and for blocking Muslims from accessing the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Then in July this year, The Times wrote, UNESCO declared the core of Hebron in the Israeli-controlled West Bank as a Palestinian World Heritage site.

What has been the reaction in the U.S. and around the world?

In a tweet, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was pleased with the decision. And after the U.S. made that announcement, Israel followed suit and withdrew from UNESCO as well.

In the U.S., Republicans like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, applauded Trump’s decision to withdraw from UNESCO.

Outside the GOP circle in Washington, organizations like the American Jewish Committee and Peter Yeo, a vice president at the U.N. Foundation, lamented that decision.

The impact of the U.S. withdrawing from UNESCO may not be fully realized until later, but the decision was also seen by some as a trend set by the Trump administration to pull the U.S. back from foreign affairs and focus more on domestic issues.