Missing Helms
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.
We suppose we should applaud Senator Schumer and Senator Clinton for their work in assembling a total of 79 senators to sign a letter to the U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan. In the letter, released yesterday, the senators said they were “deeply troubled” that Mr. Annan has supported the notion that the International Court of Justice should issue an advisory opinion on Israel’s security fence.
“As you know, the only reason Israel is building this security fence is in response to three years of suicide bombings and shootings by Palestinian extremists that has claimed over 900 innocent Israeli lives,” the senators wrote. “Israel has no less of a right to defend its citizens than other nations of the world, and the security fence is a major part of this defense effort, particularly since the Palestinian Authority refuses to take any action against terrorism. Israel has reiterated the purely security needs for this fence, has declared that it is not to be seen as permanent. . . .” they wrote.
The senators are correct about all this. They call the General Assembly’s effort to get the international court involved “a blatant attempt to manipulate the United Nations system for clearly political purposes.”So what are the senators doing about it? Their letter to Mr. Annan says, “we respectfully request that you reconsider your stance and urge you to act.”
Somehow, the hardball tactics that Mr. Schumer employs to block Republican judicial nominees have given way in this case to respectful requests. Time was, a senator who was upset about something like this would do something serious, like withhold America’s dues to the world body. As it is, America is set to subsidize a huge loan to renovate the U.N. headquarters in New York. That’s on top of the huge portion of the U.N.’s operating expenses that we pay. When Mrs. Clinton went after the International Red Cross for its anti-Israel bias, she threatened to withhold American funding for the organization. We’re glad to see our senators siding with Israel on this one. But if they really wanted to be taken seriously, they would have done something serious, like Senator Helms did when the United Nations got out of line on his watch.
