Rep. Benjamin Rosenthal (D. NY) has warned United Nations Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar that the recent censure of Israel by the General Assembly has “critically jeopardized” American support for the UN, particularly among longtime supporters of the world body.
The February 5 resolution “and the broader atmosphere which produced it and allowed it to pass, are critically jeopardizing continued American support of the United Nations — not just among those who have had doubts in the past but among your very best friends,” he said in a letter to Perez.
Rosenthal, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, noted that he has supported the UN during his 20 years in the House and served as a member of the U.S. delegation to the General Assembly in 1979. He said he has defended the UN “despite periodic differences with specific United Nations actions” because he believes that “daily communication among all nations is essential to world peace, whatever the frustrations.”
‘THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE FURIOUS’
But now, Rosenthal stressed, “I am furious with the substance and procedures” of the resolution censuring Israel. “My colleagues are furious.” he added. “The American people are furious. Sentiment to cut off financial support is growing significantly, even among those who in the past fought against such action. You would be grievously mistaken to dismiss this reaction as simply a short-term response to a single event.
“For me, and for many other long-standing American friends of the UN, this event has brought about a very considerable shift in our feeling and thought. We see it as the culmination of a process which has long distressed us. The United Nations is becoming a body of recrimination instead of an institution of reconciliation.”
Rosenthal blamed this deterioration on “a lack of nerve among moderate and independent members and officials of the United Nations. They allow resolutions like this to pass and dismiss them as rhetoric or theater with no real bearing on issues of substance. They are wrong. And, in the end, they are self-destructive. For their own influence is ultimately every bit as much under attack as is the existence of a single state.”
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