Who Opens Session Bent on Health, Not the Politics of PLO Admission

The World Health Organization opened its annual assembly here Monday, apparently determined to devote the two-week session to urgent global health issues, instead of political wrangling over admittance of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Ambassador Itzhak Lior, the Israeli delegate to the U.N. agency, predicted that the PLO’s bid for admission as the self-proclaimed state of Palestine would be shunted aside.

The United States, which has had limited contacts with the PLO through its headquarters in Tunis over the last two years, may have convinced the Palestinians that to press their case would only antagonize the delegates, who want to keep politics out of this year’s session.

Nevertheless, some means of satisfying Palestinian aspirations, or at least saving face, are being pursued behind the scenes.

A small victory for the PLO would be to designate the Palestinian Red Crescent to channel the $18 million the WHO provides annually for the health needs of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

But even that face-saving device appears unlikely.

The Cairo-based Red Crescent is headed by Dr. Fathi Arafat, a medical doctor-and-brother of PLO chief Yasir Arafat.

The Israelis charge it is a PLO front and do not permit it to operate in the territories. The United States accepts the Israeli view.

John Bolton, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs who is attending the WHO opening, described the Palestinian Red Crescent as “an arm of the PLO.”

“Our impression is that the overwhelming majority of the countries are against it,” he said at a news conference Monday.

The United States wields considerable influence at the WHO, by virtue of providing more than a quarter of its annual budget.

The U.S. Congress is committed to withdrawing American financing if the PLO is admitted to the 167-nation agency.