The Zionist Organization of America has urged the United States to boycott the session of the U.N. General Assembly in Geneva, where Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasir Arafat will speak.
In letters Monday to Secretary of State George Shultz and Ambassador Vernon Walters, the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, ZOA President Milton Shapiro argued that “to be consistent with the position taken by the United States that terrorists and terrorism are objectionable, the American representatives should absent themselves when Arafat speaks in Geneva.”
Shultz refused last month to grant Arafat an entry visa to address the General Assembly in New York on grounds that he knew of and condoned acts of terrorism against Americans and others.
The General Assembly voted overwhelmingly Friday to move its annual Palestine debate to U.N. European headquarters in Geneva, where Arafat is welcome. The debate will be held from Dec. 13 to 15.
The State Department has since made clear that the United States will be represented at the Geneva session.
Shapiro asked in his letters, “If terrorism and terrorists are objectionable to the United States, is not giving Arafat credence in Geneva equally objectionable?”
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