Clinton and the JNF
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Senator Clinton is joining with a group of her colleagues to urge the United Nations Economic and Social Council to grant the Jewish National Fund of the United States “general consultative status.” A letter to 19 diplomats explains that the status would allow JNF to join more than 2,800 other nongovernmental organizations that participate in areas of their expertise. Senators Dodd and Biden signed the letter, as did Senators Casey, Kerry, Cardin, Durbin, Feinstein, and Bingaman, who are Democrats, as did Senators Voinovich, Smith, and Coleman, who are Republicans, and Senator Lieberman, who is an independent.
Mrs. Clinton’s office notes that in January, the JNF’s application for this status was sidelined at the request of Egypt and Qatar. Egypt receives about $2 billion a year in combined economic and military aid from America, and Qatar would like a free trade agreement with us. If the resistance from Cairo and Doha persists, there are things the senators could do, beyond just writing letters, to get their attention.
We try to tip our hat to Mrs. Clinton when she takes an action we agree with, as she is doing by helping an American environmental organization dedicated to supporting Israel’s forests and water supply. It’s a courageous move that will lead the Israel-bashers to question her motives by drawing attention to $400,000 in fees President Clinton collected for three speeches in December of 2001 to the Jewish National Fund of the United Kingdom, though it is a separate entity from the JNF of the United States.
It’s praiseworthy to challenge anti-Israel bias at the United Nations on a case-by-case basis. The most far-sighted thinkers on this front — we think particularly of Senator McCain — are beginning to go beyond that, to the next logical step. They have started to question whether an institution such as the United Nations, full of undemocratic countries and infected with anti-Israel animus, is the best forum to deal with global problems. And they are beginning to look, as an alternative, to a community of democracies.
