Jeane Kirkpatrick, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, said yesterday that by taking the UN “seriously,” the Reagan Administration has been able to make positive changes in the world organization.
“By taking the United Nations seriously, we have been able to reverse some very negative trends that have developed in the United Nations,” she told more than 100 persons attending a reception sponsored by the National Jewish Coalition for Reagan-Bush at at the Dallas Hilton Hotel.
Kirkpatrick said that no trends were “more negative” than the constant attacks on the United States and the continuing efforts to make Israel a “pariah” and “delegitimize” the Jewish State.
She said before President Reagan took office, there was a tendency at the UN by the United States and others that “no matter what kind of outrageous resolution was adopted, no matter what sort of incredible attacks were made on the United States and on our friends, people just shrugged to their neighbors and said, ‘Oh well, that’s just the UN … they are just letting off steam’.”
‘TURKISH BATH’ THEORY ABANDONED
Kirkpatrick called this the “Turkish bath” theory of the UN. “One thing we have done in this Administration is to abandon the Turkish bath theory of the United Nations,” she said.
She said actions at the UN do have an effect on what happens throughout the world. She said that when she attended the 20th anniversary of Burundi last year, one of the banners carried in the parade declared “Zionism is racism.” She noted that the small African country had few Moslems or Jews.
Kirkpatrick said that while she was a friend of Israel, she had not gone to the UN to defend Israel. But her concern about Israel developed “as I saw the extraordinarily unfair treatment to which Israel was regularly subjected.” She added that attacks on Israel are frequently coupled with attacks on the United States.
Kirkpatrick, a Democrat who has proven to be extremely popular here, not only with Jews but with delegates to the Republican national convention, was also the guest of honor at a reception given by the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Tuesday night.
CITES U.S. SUPPORT OF ISRAEL IN THE UN
She stressed yesterday that her efforts at the UN in support of Israel were not her personal policies but those of Reagan and his foreign policy officials, including Secretary of State George Shultz and his predecessor, Alexander Haig.
Kirkpatrick noted the particular success the Reagan Administration has had in blocking efforts to expel or bar Israel from UN bodies. White House counselor Edwin Meese, who was also at the Jewish coalition event, said that one of the first things Reagan made clear when taking office was that “if the United Nations moves to expel Israel, then the United States will walk out arm-in-arm” with Israel.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
