10 Things Obama Should Do at the United Nations This Week

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Richard Grenell

When Barack Obama was campaigning to be president of the United States in 2008, he frequently promised Americans that he would lead the world. In fact, he and his team relentlessly pounded President George W. Bush for "going it alone" and alienating our friends and allies around the globe. His then-campaign foreign policy advisor and current U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice even joked about how, if elected, they would repair the damage and lead the UN in a way that the Bush team couldn't.

But after almost 2 years on the job, Rice and Obama haven't been able to garner support from the UN to implement U.S. foreign policy priorities as they said they would. In fact, on Iran, North Korea, Sudan and UN reform, Obama and Rice haven't produced the support Bush garnered. While Rice has touted her performance on one Iran sanctions resolution as unique progress at the UN, her final vote count on that one resolution got more "No" votes than did Bush's five Iran resolutions got in total.

Unfortunately, Rice has also been painfully quiet when faced with resistance and hostility from the enemies of democracy and freedom. As President Obama goes back to the UN this week, there are 10 things he should do to more forcefully push for progress on U.S. priorities and more aggressively defend the U.S.:

• Make clear that the Arizona law the UN attacked was written to stop illegal immigration, not prohibit legal immigration.
• Call out the Human Rights Council for yet another disastrous year of Israel bashing and overlooking rights violators.
• Nominate a U.S. Ambassador level person to tackle UN reform and UN budget waste, fraud, abuse and duplicity.
• Ask Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to investigate the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to ascertain how erroneous scientific claims were added to official UN reports.
• Make clear that the United States will not unilaterally disarm its nuclear weapons and will not support restrictions on private firearm ownership.
• Call for a total review of every UN peace-keeping operation and end those that aren't making progress.
• Ask the African Union to pressure Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to end the violence and intimidation of southern Sudan and allow international observers for January's referendum.
• Condemn any global airline tax that the UN is thinking of implementing to pay for climate change initiatives.
• Make clear that his Administration will not become a signatory of the International Criminal Court until significant changes are made to satisfy Senate concerns and protect American personnel overseas.
• Correct the record with the UN press corps that First Lady Michelle Obama doesn't think that being first lady is "hell" but that she is actually very proud to represent the greatest country in the world.

These 10 proposals would go a far way in showing the UN that while the Obama Administration is interested in seeking a kinder, gentler world; it will not allow a further retreat of democracy and human rights just to get along with others.

Obama Soft-Pedals Reforms at UN

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By: Kara Rowland

When President Obama speaks to the United Nations this week, he'll highlight gains from his policy of engaging the world body, but critics say that will come at the expense of U.N. reform — a Bush-era priority that, at least publicly, seems to have taken a back seat.

The White House has not permanently filled a key reform-centered ambassadorship to the United Nations after Mr. Obama's first nominee, Jide Zeitlin, withdrew his name late last year amid controversy about some business dealings.

Despite evidence of mismanagement at the massive organization, critics say, the U.S. delegation has backed away from the tough watchdog role it played under President George W. Bush.

The Obama administration said its multilateralist approach has helped advance interests on scores of issues, including nuclear nonproliferation and female empowerment.

Officials say the delegation continues to air grievances on management shortcomings, but does so privately and strategically.

Veteran diplomat Joseph H. Melrose Jr. is the acting U.S. representative for management and reform.

John R. Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 2005 and 2006, said the Obama administration's lack of a permanent ambassador to deal with the reform agenda sends the wrong message.

"That is the kind of signal in New York to the secretariat and other countries, basically, that the administration simply doesn't care about reform, management, budget kinds of issues," Mr. Bolton said.

Mr. Bolton, an outspoken critic of the U.N. political leadership, said the administration's "political calculus is 180 degrees in the wrong direction." He noted Mr. Obama's decision to recognize the Human Rights Council and submit a review on human rights in the U.S. Among the council's 14 member states are several nations accused of human rights violations, including Libya, Angola, and Malaysia.

"By not taking a strong reform stand, they are actually undercutting the U.N.'s credibility," he said of the U.S. delegation.

Indeed, the credibility of the 192-nation body has been marred by scandals such as the Iraq oil-for-food program and accusations of sexual misconduct by U.N. peacekeepers in Africa.

A departing U.N. investigator issued a stinging internal report this summer that accused Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of thwarting her efforts as head of the office of internal oversight services to probe mismanagement and corruption. In the memo, which was leaked to the press in July, Swedish auditor Inga-Britt Ahlenius concluded that the "secretariat now is in a process of decay" owing to Mr. Ban's leadership.

U.S. Ambassador Susan E. Rice said in a statement one week later that she was "frustrated by the recent direction of the investigations division, which must more vigorously pursue fraud and misconduct."

A U.S. official stressed that the administration's low-key public response didn't reflect the displeasure behind the scenes. Mr. Ban swiftly nominated a replacement for Ms. Ahlenius, partly because of U.S. pressure to keep the internal-oversight office as operationally independent as possible, the official said.

The official said the U.S. was instrumental, through behind-the-scenes lobbying, in getting the U.N. General Assembly to approve a new framework aimed at improving effectiveness and efficiency in global peacekeeping missions.

Patrick Ventrell, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the U.N., said the shift in strategy has been a boon to American interests.

"The U.S. mission to the United Nations has been on the front lines of President Obama's new era of engagement, achieving tangible results that make Americans safer, like the passage of tough sanctions [against] Iran and North Korea, and the reinvigoration of the Non-Proliferation Treaty with a successful review conference," Mr. Ventrell said. "These gains are the result of our work to end needless American isolation, scrap outdated positions, repair frayed relationships and build a strong basis for cooperation to advance America's security."

Ms. Rice, a Clinton administration foreign-policy adviser, laid out the new approach last summer at New York University. She said the Bush administration's "stiff-arming" of the U.N. failed to advance core U.S. values and that the new delegation embraces the Millennium Development Goals, supports climate change initiatives and no longer blocks U.S. aid for health programs over concerns about abortions.

Heather Hurlburt, executive director of the National Security Network, said the debate boils down to two competing philosophies on how best to accomplish U.S. goals.

"I don't think there's any evidence that we've backed away from the internal-watchdog role; we've backed away from the external critic role," she said. "You just can't measure what is or isn't happening by the degree of rhetoric coming from the U.S. mission to the U.N."

Ms. Hurlburt said the Obama administration's willingness to engage at the U.N. has resulted in more cooperation on U.S. priorities, such as sanctions against North Korea and Iran, and nuclear nonproliferation.

"You could argue that for the previous administration, U.N. reform was actually more important than any of the things the U.N. actually did," she said.

Critics of the Obama approach say it's incumbent upon the U.S. to prioritize U.N. reform.

"Unfortunately, no other country in the organization really steps forward when the U.S. fails to fill that role," said Brett Schaefer, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation. "If you're going to be a serious body, then you have to be transparent. When we give you money, you have to allow us to find out where that money goes and how it's used. You can't have cronyism; you have to open yourself to a minimum level of due diligence."

A Republican takeover of the House or Senate could complicate the administration's U.N. strategy. Republicans have held congressional hearings or withheld funds as leverage to adopt specific U.N. reforms.

"I think the Obama administration has been wary of being overly critical of the management failings of the United Nations for fear that it will simply arm congressional critics, who might then tar the United Nations with too broad a brush," said Stewart Patrick, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "There's fairly little upside for them."

Analysts noted that the Obama administration seems to have taken a page from the Bush administration's playbook by using organizations outside the U.N. — such as the Group of 20 finance ministers and the five permanent Security Council members plus Germany — to advance certain interests.

In a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations this month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "The U.N. was never intended to tackle every challenge, nor should it. So when appropriate, we are working with our partners to establish new venues and organizations to focus on specific problems."

"That's a pretty stunning remark from what I consider to be the most pro-U.N. administration in several years," Mr. Schaefer said.

The World's Community Organizer

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by Michael Fullilove

September 18, 2010 | 6:57pm

At the U.N. this week, President Obama will promote a foreign policy straight out of the community organizer's playbook: one that demands progressivism, accountability—and engagement of the enemy.

President Barack Obama comes to New York this week to visit the United Nations. He will address the General Assembly, meet with Asian leaders, and participate in a clutch of meetings on issues concerning the international community, including development and the situation in Sudan. His trip coincides with the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, at which the great and the good pledge to help address international problems.

Barack Obama talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong during the opening session of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, DC. April 13, 2010. Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

But if his work in New York this week throws light on his approach to international affairs, so does the work he did in Chicago back in the day. What he presents to his fellow world leaders this week -- a progressive foreign policy, a willingness to engage with adversaries, a commitment to following the rules and making others do the same -- reflects his background as a community organizer.

The foreign policy styles of presidents sometimes show traces of their previous careers. Former actor Ronald Reagan liked a simple plot and a few good lines. Bill Clinton displayed a lawyer’s fondness for arguing both sides of an issue. George W. Bush, former managing partner of the Texas Rangers, believed that changing a single regime could solve the problems of the Middle East, just as a single hit can win a game of baseball.

Barack Obama often relates how after college he became a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago. Community organizing is a social movement pioneered by activist Saul Alinsky which mobilizes communities to work together to improve their circumstances.

Community organizers identify who holds power, and they set out to engage them.

As president, Obama is trying to become an international community organizer.

There are some immediate objections to this comparison. Community organizing is about domestic policy, not foreign policy. It is a tool for the powerless, yet the White House is a global center of power. Community organizers usually take a confrontational approach and get in their opponents’ faces; Obama does not. Community organizing handbooks say that things should be run by local networks, not charismatic outsiders like Obama, with his soaring speeches to mass rallies.

• U.N. General Assembly, CGI Returns: The Daily Beast’s Guide ot the Week AheadNevertheless, the parallels are strong. First, community organizing is a fundamentally progressive enterprise concerned with bringing about change. There is a strong progressive streak in Obama’s foreign policy, seen most powerfully in his signature initiative to reduce global stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

Second, community organizers are preoccupied with power. They don’t aspire to the purity of the impotent. They identify who holds power, and they set out to engage them.

As president, Obama has engaged with all sorts of troublesome regimes. He shook hands with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and pressed the reset button on America's relations with Russia. He was slow to stand up for protestors in Tehran and to meet with the Dalai Lama, in order to better engage with Iran and China. He set aside the freedom agenda of the right and the human rights agenda of the left, and has earned their criticism for it. In his Nobel Peace Prize lecture, he gave a community organizer’s world-weary response: “I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation.”

Community organizers will engage anyone if it furthers the interests of the community. This tough-minded focus on interests is the final bridge between the two ends of Obama’s life.

In 1988, a young Obama wrote that the task for community organizers is to “knit together the diverse interests” and thereby “shape a sense of community not only for others, but for themselves.”

This same theme emerges in Obama’s most important foreign policy statements. In his Nobel lecture, he accepted that the United States must restrain its own power and abide by international standards of conduct. Americans cannot “insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves.” A community only holds together if everyone follows the rules.

Yet there is a flipside to this principle, as he explained at the United Nations last year: “Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world's problems alone.” When a state shrugs off efforts at engagement and breaches the rules, the community must be tough in enforcing them.

Obama is trying to organize a community of like-minded nations who are prepared to act in areas where their interests overlap – even where that action comes at the price of, say, trade lost with Iran, or lives lost in Afghanistan. “Those regimes that break the rules must be held accountable… Intransigence must be met with increased pressure – and such pressure exists only when the world stands together as one.”

Obama’s foreign policy attracts criticisms that closely track those leveled at community organizing. Just as Margaret Thatcher said “there is no such thing as society,” so John Bolton claims “there is no such thing as the United Nations”. There is no meaningful international community, they argue, and endless apologizing and philosophizing won’t bring one into being.

Yet what is the alternative to international community organizing? The Bush presidency revealed the limits to America’s power when it acted alone.

Many years ago, Obama explained why he agreed to become a community organizer given that the pay is low, the hours long, and the appreciation minimal. His answer then applies equally to international community organizing now on issues such as nuclear weapons, Afghanistan, and Iran:

“It needs to be done, and not enough folks are doing it.”

Michael Fullilove is the director of the global issues program at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia and a nonresident senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. A lawyer and historian by training, he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and served as an adviser to the Australian prime minister. Fullilove’s next book, on the Second World War, will be published by The Penguin Press. You can follow him on Twitter athttp://twitter.com/mfullilove.

U.N. Dues: Obama Lets American Taxpayers Down

by Brett D. Schaefer

WebMemo #2747

The debate over whether the United Nations will continue to overcharge American taxpayers is over--and the U.S. wound up on the losing end. In a dramatic turnaround from steady declines since 2001, the percentage that the U.S. will be charged for U.N. peacekeeping has been sharply increased for the next three years, and U.S. taxpayers will end up paying roughly $100 million more each year than they would have if the 2009 assessment rate had been maintained.

Even more troubling than the outcome, though, is the seeming disinterest of the Obama Administration in opposing this increase. Indeed, the Administration did not even bother to demand a vote on the resolution. To avoid similar setbacks, the U.S. must see the U.N. for the tough political environment that it is and be prepared to defend its interests more aggressively.

Hitting the U.S. Taxpayer

Every three years, the U.N. considers proposals to modify its formula for charging member states for the expenses of the organization--its "scale of assessments" for the U.N. regular budget and the U.N. peacekeeping budget.[1] The discussions are contentious, as small changes in the formula can result in some states being charged millions of dollars more or less than in previous years.

The U.S. has fought for years to lower its U.N. assessment--it even wrung a promise out of the U.N. to lower the U.S. regular budget assessment to 22 percent and its peacekeeping assessment to 25 percent in return for paying nearly $1 billion in U.S. arrears to the U.N. as part of the 1999 Helms-Biden legislation.[2]

The good news is that the formula for calculating assessments remains unchanged.[3] However, it is hard to give the U.S. credit for bowing to a continuation of the status quo desired by influential developing countries (particularly rapidly developing countries like China and India) under which they are substantially undercharged.[4]

In addition, the U.S. allowed the U.N. General Assembly to pass a substantial increase in the U.N. regular budget that will cost American taxpayers millions of dollars over the next two years without demanding that the U.N. implement overdue reform or offset new spending by eliminating outdated or ineffective mandates.[5]

Keeping the Peace

Although the U.S. assessment for the regular budget remained the same, the U.S. was not so lucky in terms of its assessment for U.S. peacekeeping. Under the assessment formula, permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (like the U.S.) are charged a "premium" above their normal U.N. assessment in order to subsidize lower peacekeeping assessments for other countries--giving them a "discount" of up to 90 percent.

Prior to Helms-Biden, the U.S. assessment for the peacekeeping budget was more than 30 percent. The U.N. reduced the U.S. assessment to 22 percent of the regular budget in January 2001. However, it agreed to lower the U.S. peacekeeping assessment to 25 percent only over the course of several years. The U.S. assessment gradually fell to 25.9624 percent in 2009.

This downward trajectory was dramatically reversed in the 2010-2012 scale of assessments, which charges the U.S. 27.1743 percent in 2010 and 27.1415 percent in 2011 and 2012.[6] Compared to the 2009 assessment rate, the U.S. will be charged an additional 1.2119 percent in 2010 and 1.1791 percent in 2011 and 2012. It may not sound like much, but based on the current $7.8 billion U.N. peacekeeping budget,[7] this means that U.S. taxpayers will be charged approximately $100 million more for U.N. peacekeeping annually over the next three years than would otherwise be the case.

All the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council face increases, but theirs are not as high as the U.S. increase.[8] The increases are being applied in order to lower the assessment for two dozen countries. Japan is the main beneficiary, which is appropriate since it volunteered to increase its assessment in order to help the U.N. reduce the U.S. assessment in the first place. But it is a travesty that the U.S. assessment for peacekeeping is increased while the gross under-assessment of the wealthier developing countries like Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, and Turkey remains unaddressed.[9]

A Predictable Outcome

The decision of U.N. member states to increase the U.S. peacekeeping assessment was eminently predictable.[10] Indeed, the U.S. practically invited this outcome when it increased the cap on U.S. payments for U.N. peacekeeping from 25 percent to 27.1 percent in the Fiscal Year 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Bill (H.R. 2764).[11]

The decision was bad policy. It rewarded the U.N. by permitting payment of arrears even though it has failed to adopt critical reforms to prevent sexual abuse and other misconduct by U.N. peacekeepers or enhance transparency, accountability, and oversight. It ignored an opportunity for the U.S. to use its financial leverage to pressure the U.N. to adopt rules, procedures, and practices to address those issues. It also removed the key incentive for the U.N. to follow through on its promise and lower the U.S. peacekeeping assessment and demonstrated that the U.S. is no longer intent on lowering its peacekeeping assessment to 25 percent.

Indeed, by increasing the cap, the U.S. practically invited the other U.N. member states to increase the U.S. assessment. It is no coincidence that the U.S. peacekeeping assessment was increased to roughly 27.1 percent to match the new U.S. cap. Ironically, because the new U.S. assessment (27.1743 percent in 2010 and 27.1415 percent in 2011 and 2012) is above the cap established by Congress, each year the U.S. will likely accumulate millions in new arrears. Preventing U.S. arrears to the U.N. was precisely the outcome that advocates of increasing the cap were hoping to forestall.[12]

Despite the cavalier backtracking by the U.N. on its promise to reduce the U.S. peacekeeping assessment to 25 percent, the Obama Administration will undoubtedly argue that the new assessment must be paid as part of America's legal obligation under the U.N. charter. Congress should give this argument little weight. In the past, the most effective means for spurring U.N. reform has been to use America's financial leverage. Congress should demand that the U.N. abide by the agreement to lower the U.S. peacekeeping assessment to 25 percent and reduce the legislative cap to that level to encourage compliance.

An Abdication of Responsibility

The U.S. should have fought the increase in its peacekeeping assessment by calling for a vote and demanded that the U.N. member states honor the promise to reduce the U.S. assessment to 25 percent. Instead, in an abdication of its responsibility as steward of U.S. taxpayer dollars at the U.N., the Obama Administration let the General Assembly increase the burden on American taxpayers without even demanding a vote.

This will only further embolden the other U.N. member states to demand that the U.S. pay even more money to a mismanaged organization that is lacking in transparency and accountability, prone to record-breaking budget increases in recent years, and resistant to reform.

Brett D. Schaefer is Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation and editor of ConUNdrum: The Limits of the U.N. and the Search for Alternatives (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2009).

UN should be sidelined in future climate talks, says Obama official

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• Suzanne Goldenberg Washington John Vidal
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 14 January 2010

America sees a diminished role for the United Nations in trying to stop global warming after the "chaotic" Copenhagen climate change summit, an Obama administration official said today.

Jonathan Pershing, who helped lead talks at Copenhagen, instead sketched out a future path for negotiations dominated by the world's largest polluters such as China, the US, India, Brazil and South Africa, who signed up to a deal in the final hours of the summit. That would represent a realignment of the way the international community has dealt with climate change over the last two decades.

"It is impossible to imagine a global agreement in place that doesn't essentially have a global buy-in. There aren't other institutions beside the UN that have that," Pershing said. "But it is also impossible to imagine a negotiation of enormous complexity where you have a table of 192 countries involved in all the detail."

Pershing said the flaws in the UN process, which demands consensus among the international community, were exposed at Copenhagen. "The meeting itself was at best chaotic," he said, in a talk at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "We met mostly overnight. It seemed like we didn't sleep for two weeks. It seemed a funny way to do things, and it showed."

The lack of confidence in the UN extends to the $30bn (£18.5bn) global fund, which will be mobilised over the next three years to help poor countries adapt to climate change.

"The UN didn't manage the conference that well," Pershing said. "I am not sure that any of us are particularly confident that the UN managing the near-term financing is the right way to go."

Pershing did not exclude the UN from future negotiations. But he repeatedly credited the group of leading economies headed by America for moving forward on the talks, including on finance and developing green technology. He suggested the larger forum offered by the UN was instead important for countries such as Cuba or the small islands which risk annihilation by climate change to air their grievances.

"We are going to have a very very difficult time moving forward and it will be a combination of small and larger processes," he said.

The first test of the accord agreed by America, China, India, South Africa and Brazil arrives on 31 January, the deadline for countries to commit officially to actions to halt global warming. Here, too, Pershing indicated the focus would be narrower in scope than the UN's all-inclusive approach. "We expect there will be significant actions recorded by major countries," he said. "We are not really worried what Chad does. We are not really worried about what Haiti says it is going to do about greenhouse gas emissions. We just hope they recover from the earthquake."

Key groups of developing countries are to meet this month to try to explore ways to get to agree a binding agreement.

As the dust settles on the stormy Danish meeting, environment ministers from the so-called Basic countries – Brazil, South Africa, India and China – will meet on 24 January in New Delhi. No formal agenda has been set, but observers expect the emerging geopolitical alliance between the four large developing countries who brokered the final "deal" with the US in Denmark will define a common position on emission reductions and climate aid money, and seek ways to convince other countries to sign up to the Copenhagen accord that emerged last month.

Fewer than 30 countries out of the 192 who are signed up to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which organised Copenhagen, have indicated that they will sign. Many are known to be deeply unhappy with the $100bn pledged for climate aid and the decision not to make deeper cuts in emissions.

Under UN laws, consensus is required. There is confusion over the legal standing of the agreement reached in Copenhagen and many countries may not be in a position to sign up by 31 January because they have yet to consult their parliaments.

Meanwhile, Bolivia, one of a handful of poor countries which openly opposed the deal in Copenhagen, has invited countries and non-governmental groups which want a much stronger climate deal to the World Conference of the People on Climate Change.

Pershing said that he had told some of those leaders that there was no prospect of reaching a stronger deal that would limit warming to 1.5 degrees.

The conference, to be held in Cochabamba in Bolivia from 20-22 April, is expected to attract heads of state from the loose alliance of socialist "Alba" countries, including Venezuela and Cuba. Alba, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America countries, was set up to provide an alternative to the US-led free trade area of the Americas.

Bolivia this week urged leaders of the world's indigenous ethnic groups and scientists to come. "The invitation is to heads of state but chiefly to civil society. We think that social movements and non government groups, people not at decision level, have an important role in climate talks," said Maria Souviron, the Bolivian ambassador in London.

The meeting, which is intended to cement ties between the seven Alba countries, is also expected to pursue the idea of an international court for environmental crimes, as well as the radical idea of "mother earth rights". This would give all entities, from man to endangered animal species, an equal right to life.

"Our objective is to save humanity and not just half of humanity," said Morales in a speech at Copenhagen. "We are here to save mother earth. Our objective is to reduce climate change to [under] 1C. [Above this] many islands will disappear and Africa will suffer a holocaust. The real cause of climate change is the capitalist system. If we want to save the earth then we must end that economic model."

U.N. Repudiates Obama Diplomacy

by Ross Kaminsky (more by this author) Posted 10/22/2009 ET

Last Friday, the U.N. Human Rights Council repudiated the Obama administration’s diplomatic efforts to establish a Middle Eastern peace by passing -- by 25-6 -- a resolution in support of the “Goldstone Report”, a 575-page thinly disguised attack against Israel. It is not just more of the same from the U.N.: it’s much worse.

The report, covering Israel’s month-long incursion into the Gaza Strip late last year (Operation Cast Lead lasted from December 27, 2008 until January 18, 2009), puts on a thin veneer of even-handedness by accusing both Israelis and Palestinians of crimes, but contradicts so many of the facts that its conclusion -- that Israeli officials may be guilty of war crimes -- should be completely lacking in credibility. But in the bizarre world of the U.N., such is the norm and the accusation taken so seriously there -- and in Europe -- that Israeli government officials may soon not be able to travel to Europe for fear of arrest.......

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