The New york Times

Monday, December 13, 1999

Annan Calls for Better Treatment of Israel at United Nations

By BARBARA CROSSETTE

Secretary General Kofi Annan, in an unambiguous plea for better treatment of Israel at the United Nations, said Sunday in a speech that actions taken by member nations to isolate Israel and single it out for the harshest criticisms have made the organization appear biased.

In a speech to the American Jewish Committee in New York, Annan called for rebuilding links between the United Nations and Jews, in Israel and other countries. "The question is not whether the United Nations and the Jewish community should be closer partners," he said. "Rather, the key issue is how we shall get from here to there."

Annan's remarks Sunday echoed a speech he made in Israel in March 1998 that was seen as a turning point by many Jews in their dealings with the United Nations.

"I know that to some of you in this audience, and to the Jewish community at large, it sometimes seems that the United Nations served all the world's peoples but one: the Jews," he said yesterday.

The speech to the American Jewish Committee, which has long been involved in international affairs and human rights, is another step in the increasingly bold direction Annan is taking as secretary general, three years into his five-year term.

In September, he startled the General Assembly by not giving the usual bland summary opening speech and arguing for overriding national sovereignty when governments abuse their citizens. That has set off a heated debate around the world, and brought some sharp criticism of Annan, whose job many countries would like to keep ceremonial.

Israel was an active member of the United Nations in its early years. But with Israel's battlefield victories in 1967 and 1973 and the long occupation of what Palestinians regard as their territories, a coalition of developing nations in the Middle East, Africa and Asia began concerted attacks on Israel in the United Nations in the 1970's.

In 1975, the General Assembly voted to equate Zionism with racism, and Israel's right to take part in many United Nations activities was challenged while special scrutiny, often amounting to hounding Israel, took place in various sections of the organization.

Annan's speech was at a dinner honoring Morris B. Abram, an American civil rights lawyer who founded the private organization U.N. Watch in Geneva in 1993 to monitor the treatment of Israel and other issues.

Annan expressed displeasure at the continuing refusal of nations to admit Israel to a regional grouping within the United Nations. This and other actions, he said, "have given a regrettable impression of bias and one-sidedness."

Israel, frozen out of the Asian bloc, which includes the Arab countries, is the only nation without membership in any regional group. That means it cannot hold a rotating Security Council seat or important committee positions, which are filled through nominations from regional caucuses. A move to give Israel temporary membership in the "European and other" group has been blocked by several European nations.

Annan noted that the resolution equating Zionism with racism was repealed nine years ago and that anti-Semitism has been added to the list of racist attitudes the General Assembly wants to eliminate. "Even so," he said, "deep and painful scars remain -- for the United Nations, I should stress, as much as for you."

Annan said that the tragedy of the estrangement between the organization and Israel is compounded by the circumstances of the United Nations' founding.

"Indeed, the United Nations will never forget its origins in the fight against fascism, and that its charter was drafted as the world was learning the full horrors of the Holocaust," he said. "This history makes it especially sad that such a gulf arose between us."

Abram, whom the committee honored Sunday with its National Distinguished Leadership Award, served five American presidents from John F. Kennedy to George Bush. Bush appointed him the United States representative at the United Nations in Geneva. As a young lawyer, Abram worked on the Nuremberg trials, which brought Nazis to justice after World War II.