Under Audrey Azoulay, the director general who took up her post after Trump announced the decision to leave, Israel and Arab states have reached consensus on a dozen Unesco texts — a new development. A Holocaust education website was introduced along with the United Nations’ first educational guidelines to combat anti-Semitism.

“Unesco was being used for things not strictly in its sphere, like issues of sovereignty,” Azoulay told me in an interview. “The debate about over-politicization was legitimate given how the organization was being used, especially in the last decade. There was a loss of credibility. I have tried hard to reduce the politicization and work for consensus.”

She continued: “In the light of the progress made over the past 12 months, I deeply regret the withdrawal of the United States, a founding member, and Israel.”

A Unesco conference on anti-Semitism was held on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly last September. Netanyahu had shown serious interest in attending. But to offend Trump and Haley was, in the end, a bridge too far for the Israeli prime minister.

In his speech, Secretary-General António Guterres did not pull punches. He said anti-Semitism was “expressing itself in attempts to delegitimize the right of Israel to exist” and used “the pretext of the situation in the Middle East to target Jews and Jewish symbols.” He denounced neo-Nazi and white supremacy groups and spoke of “tribalism run amok.” It was a conference that merited the highest-level Israeli attendance.

Azoulay’s senior staff has tempered the language of Unesco resolutions on the Middle East through diplomatic mediation, relegating the most sensitive language about Israel to nonbinding annexes.

The former Israeli ambassador to Unesco, Carmel Shama Hacohen, compared the atmosphere last April to “a wedding.” Last June he welcomed a “new spirit” and said that there was a “a need to re-evaluate, in full coordination with the U.S., the question of leaving.”