(Archived document, may contain errors)
473 Dec ember 17, 1985 I THE PLO'S VALUABLE ALLY THE UNITED NATIONS I INTRODUCTION Only the threat that Ronald Reagan would boycott the United Nation's 40th anniversary General Assembly session this fall finally persuaded supporters of the Palestine Liberation Or g anization to drop their demands that PZX) chief Yassir Arafat be invited to address the U.N. Yet General Assembly President Jaime de Pinies of Spain made it clearlthat the PLO is welcome to speak to the General Assembly at any time. Indeed, the history of the past decade reveals that the PLO may be more welcome at the General Assembly podium than is the U.S.
Almost the entire United Nations system, in fact, has become a system, including the specialized agencies. And just as if it were a valuable PLO ally member state, the PLO maintains an official mission at 115 East 65th Street in Manhattan and participates in Security Council debates. The U.N. Department of Public Information distributes pro-PLO papers and booklets reaching journalists, academics, and n o ngovernmental organizations (NGOs) throughout the world. Pro-PZX) displays and posters grace the lobbies and libraries of U.N. buildings in New York and across the globe. This material is coordinated and sometimes written by the pro-PLO members of the U.N . Secretariat in the Division of Palestinian Rights It has official observer status throughout the Inside the U.N. Secretariat, the PLO has significant impact on personnel matters and on critical policy decisions. And from its U.N 1. The New York Times, Oc tober 15, 1985.
I base of operations, the PLO enjoys access to the American press and espionage opportunities within the U.S.
The U.S. Congress long has chafed at and opposed the PLO's prominence at the U.N A 1979 U.S. law attempted to cut off American fu nding for PLO activities withhold the U.S. contribution to thezU.N. budget (25 percent) for all U.N. activities that benefit the PLO. The trouble is that the State Department has been reluctant to enforce this law mandate very narrowly and finds every pos s ible loopholp to permit continued U.S. funding of U.N.-related PLO activities. The State Department does not even conduct vigorous research t'o determine the extent of such activities And according to telephone calls to the State Department, in the absenc e of written documents, the State Department has thus far withheld funding from only three of the many U.N. agencies and committees that support PLO activities It requires the State Department to It reads its This lapse of responsibility has come to the at t ention of Congress. Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) has asked for a General Accounting Office investigation of PLO activities in the U.N., and Congressman Jack Kemp (R-NY) is looking into how much the State Department has been withholding from the U.N. and w h y the sum is not higher. Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) has recently offered an amendment to the Commerce, Justice, and State Department appropriations bill requiring the U.S. to withhold its portion of every U.N. activity that benefits the PLO in any wa y.
It is not enough, however, to withhold pro-PLO funds from the U.N. budget. The State Department also should enforce the 1947 U.N Headquarters Agreement, codified in U.S. law as P.L. 357, which allows the U.S., as host to the U.N., to expel the foreign P LO representatives in this country. And the U.S. should look into the possibility of closing down the PLO mission in New York as well as the PLO's Washington bureau, the Palestine Information Office with its two separate D.C. locations.
Today the PLO is a divided, crippled movement. It is kept alive by heavy Soviet subsidies, terrorist activities, and to a great extent, the legitimacy conferred on it by its privileged role at the U.N. This despite its open vow and campaign to destroy Israel, a U.N 2. Upda ted as Public Law 98-164, November 22, 1983 3. See Juliana Geran Pilon, "Blinking at the Law, the State Department Helps the PLO Heritage Foundation Executive Memorandum No. 20, April 19, 19
83. The present counsel to the International Organizations Bureau , Ted Borek, has failed to return phone calls from The Heritage Foundation to question him about his reasons for reportedly advising in favor of a narrow reading of the congressional mandate 2 I member.
Charter For the U.N. to shield and promote the PLO violates the U.N.
The U.S. should not be an accomplice to this.
Congres's should instruct the State Department to begin enforcing rigorously the law banning U.S. funding of PLO activities. The President and Congress should call for a thorough U.S. investigation of the PLO role at the U.N. and of its advantageous uses of the U.N.
With the findings of such an inquiry, the President and Congress should devise new policies to limit PLO exploitation of the U.N The President and THE PLO IN THE U.N T he U.N. Is endorsement of national liberation movements (NLMs the blanket under which the PLO claims legitimacy, dates at least as far back as December 20, 1965, when the Soviet-backed General Assembly Resolution 21OS(XX) recognized "the legitimacy of the struggle by the peoples under colonial rule to exercise their right of self-determination and independence, and invite(d) all states to provide material and moral assistance to the NLMs in colonial territorie This was followed on December 15, 1970, by Res o lution 2708(XXV an endorsement of using "all the necessary means at their disposal to achieve their ends. These resolutions provide official encouragement to extremists and terrorists, in particular the PLO, to read the U.N. Charter as legitimizing their use of force. The culmination was the glaring double standard Resolution 3103 of.
December 13, 1973, which declared that "armed conflicts involving the struggle of peoples against colonial and racist regimes are to be regarded as international armed conflicts1# while the use of mercenaries by legitimate governments against NLMs is #
considered to be a crimina.1 act This is in effect an endorsement of the ##armed strugglell perpetrated by Nms-even if it should involve terrorism-while resistance organized against them is condemned as illegitimate.
The cause of the PLO and NIX8 in general was further enhanced by the U.N.'s definition of aggression contained in Resolution 3314 of December 14, 19
74. This effectively exculpates terror-violence from any liabili ty when employed on behalf of Self-determination movements or against colonial and racist regimes. The resolution was adopted 4. For an analysis of the negotiations leading to the definition, see Julius Stone Aanression and World Order: A Critiaue of U.N. Theories of Aggression (Westport Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1976 5. See Robert A. Friedlander Dialogue: The Legal Status of the PLO Journal of International Law and Policv, Vol. 10, 1981, p. 228 3I less than one month after Arafat addressed the General Assembly. There he boasted of the PLO's6determination to establish a Palestinian state in the place of Israel Charter Article 19 which states and the establishment of the state f Israel are entirely illegal regardless of the passage of time." In his speec h , Arafat attacked Zionist llbarbarism 11 Zionist llracism, n and its l'terrorism. He accused the U.N. of partitioning "what it had no right to divide-an indivisible homeland the homeland that should be ruled by the PLO in line with the Palestinian Nationa l the partition of Palestine in 1947 I1 On November 22, 1974, the PLO was awarded "permanent observer status at the U.N. by Resol'ution 32
37. Britainls representative emphasized that his government considered the U.N.'s move to be "a fundamental departure from [previous] practice," that brings into question ''the nature of the U.N. as it has hitherto been accepted I8 Resolution 3236(XXIX meanwhile, asked the U.N. Secretary General "to establish contacts with the PLO," and instructed the Secretariat to pro mote the PLO goals adopted by the General Assembly.
It is this resolution to which the Secretariat's Department of Public Information and other agencies point to justify their overtly pro-PLO activities.
The U.N. promotion of the PLO accelerated with the creation of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (Palestine Committee for short) by Resolution 3376 on November 13, 19
75. Though allegedly impartial,.the Committee in practice 1,s a platform for pro-PLO statements.
Victor J. Gaud, the Permanent Representative of Malta to the U.N admitted to The Heritage Foundation that the Committee is "fully supportive of the PLO and its goals on December 7, 1977, which produces "reports" and coordinates nongovernmental organ ization activities sympathetic to the PLO. These activities are enhanced by the U.N. Department of Public Information.
On December 7, 1978, General Assembly Resolution 33/28 C requested the Secretary General to that the U.N.'s DP I provide "full cooperation with the [Division Committee Rapporteur The U.N. Secretariat services the Committee through the Division of Palestinian Rights established I 6. U.N. Document A/PV.2282 7. The complete text of the Charter is reprinted in J. N. M o ore, ed., The Arab-Israeli Conflict: Readinas and Document$ (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press 1974 8. U.N. Document A/PV.2296, pp. 23-25 4Involving the U.N. Secretariat in the promotion of the PLO seriously compromises the ideal of an int ernational civil service.
Says Charles William Maynes, Assistant Secretary of State in the Carter Administration: "The U.S. should...be prepared to suspend its membership in bodies where the membership succeeds in diverting the institutional mechanism to f avor one cause over the other.IvQ In the past decade, the PLO has reaped increasing support from the U.N. and its specialized agencies through conferences publications, and a barrage of anti-Israeli General Assembly resolutions. Thomas Franck, Director of the Center for International Studies at New York University School of Law, notes that this violates the U.N. Charter. He writes: "The Assembly thus gave its hmprimatur to a movement that seeks the destruction of a member state.Il Perhaps the U.N.Is most v a luable boost to the PLO occurred December 4, 1975, when the PLO was invited to participate in Security Council debates relating to Israeli attacks directed at Palestinian camps suspected of being terrorist bases. The invitation referred to Rule 37, rather than Rule
39. This was very significant for it conferred upon the PLO the aura of being a legitimate state reason: Rule 37 covers U.N. member states, while Rule 39 applies to other persons.I the British Ambassador, warned that this would llconstitute an undesirable and unnecessary departure from the established practice of the Security Council. lr1l The The President of the Security Council, at that time On January 12, 1976, the PLO once again was invited to participate in Security Council debates as a m ember state.
Leon Gross of Tufts University explains that these invitations directly violated Article 27 of the U.N. Charter. This Article, writes Gross, is Itan essential condition of U.S. and Soviet membership in the U.N. If that condition is eroded, the continued membership of the U.S., at any rate, may well become doubtful.I1l2 Professor 9. Charles W. Maynes, "U.S. Power and Influence in the U.N. in the OS in Toby T. Gati The U. S.. the U.N.. and the Ma naaement of Global Chanve (New York: New York Uni v ersity Press, 1983 p. 338 10. Thomas M. Franck, Nation Avainst Nation: What Hamened to the U.N. Dream and What the U .S. Can Do About It (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985 p. 219 11. U.N. Document S/PV.l859, December 4, 1975 12. Leon Gross, "Voting in the Security Council and the PL0,"'American Journal of International Law, Vol. 70, 1976, pp. 470-491 5U.N. BUDGETARY SUPPORT OF THE PLO U.N. budgetary support of the PLO pervades much of the U.N system. It involves overall policy making, human rights inve stigations, conferences, films, and a host of other activities that create a kind of "megaphone for PLO arguments. Among the most important U.N. activities helping the PLO are Palestine Committee: Budget for Biennium 1984-1985: $78,300.
Currently composed of 23 member states and chaired by Senegalese Ambassador Massamba Sarre, the Palestine Committee publishes reports on "The Question of Palestine organizes conferences throughout the world, and meets with foreign ministers. The PLO is much more than a perm a nent observer in the Committee's work; it makes proposals and writes drafts of resolutions, which become General Assembly resolutions on the Middle ,East. The most active Committee participants are its two Vice Chairmen, Cuba's Oscar Oramas Oliva and Afgh a nistan's Mohammed Farid Zarif Committee Rapporteur Victor J. Gauci of Malta told The Heritage Foundation that the Committee considers the PLO the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people no matter what changes may take place within the PLO itse l f. Gaud revealed that Western Europe is a main target of his Committee's efforts. His reason: "The Europeans will then persuade the U.S. The Americans cannot remain isolated, they will have to give in Since 1983, the Committee has been concentrating on ga thering support for an international conference on the Middle East which would involve the PLO. The U.S. withholds from the U.N. budget the equivalent of 25 percent of the amount spent by the.Committee.
The Division for Palestinian Riuhts: Budget for Biennium 1984-1985: $2,290,800.
The Palestine Committee's logistical support within the Secretariat is provided by the Division for Palestinian Rights. Its pamphlets on the Middle East all support the PLO. Chief of the Division Yogaraj Yogasundran of Sri Lanka says that his staff merely follows the guidance of the General Assembly resolutions that declare the PLO the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. As such, says Yogasundram, the Division is mandated to promote PLO aims.
The Division publishes a monthly bulletin and widely disseminates Arafat's speeches. The U.S. withholds the equivalent of 25 percent of the amount spent by the Division.
Special Committee to Investiaate Israeli Practices Affectincr the Human Ricrhts of the PoDulation of the Occunied Territories: Budget for Biennium 198401985: $283,300.
The General Assembly established this Special Committee in 1968 through Resolution 2443(XXIII which already had concluded that 6- Israel was violating Palestinians' rights. The llinvestigatio n,Il therefore, hardly has been impartial. Arguing that the resolution had been motivated exclusively by political and propaganda considerations Israel has refused to cooperate with this Committee. The results therefore are based on interviews in neighbor ing states and newspaper reports--all of limited investigative value.
Yet the U.S. has failed to withhold its funding of the Special Committee.
Permanent Sovereicmtv Over National Resources in Judea. Samaria and Gaza: Budget for Biennium 1984-1985: $83,800.
In 1972, the General Assembly requested the Secretary General to For look at %he resources exploited by the Israeli colonies and the Israeli-imposed regulations and policies hampering the economic development of occupied Palestinian and other Arab terr itorie this purpose, the U.N. Second Committee recommended that "field experts" be hired to prove the foregone conclusion of the investigation. This now is an annual exercise, which relies heavily on PLO sources of information. Complains Israel Eliashiv, t he Israeli representative to the U.N. Fifth Committee, an economic issue thus is turned into a political one. The report, for example, ignores significant developments in agriculture in the Israeli-occupied territories and the relatively high living stand ard of Arabs there.
The resolution calling for this report, 39/442, takes an extremely negative approach toward Israel's activities in the territories prior to examination of the facts.
The U.S. has failed to withhold 'any funds provided to the consultants involved in the report.
Livinu Conditions of the Palestinian PeoBle: Budget for Biennium 198401985: $70,300.
The most recent Secretary General's Report on this topic A/40/373 of June 14, 1985, was in response to Resolution 3 9/169 of 1984 calling for an examination of ''the deterioration of the economic and social conditions of the Palestinian people The report according to impartial experts, is biased and distorts data and statistics to indict Israel. Serious examination of the statistics reveals, moreover, that conditions of Palestinians in the occupied territories not only have not deteriorated but have improved since Israel took control in 19
67. Yet this unbalanced report continues to aid the PLO's campaign at the U.N The U.S. has not withheld any of the report's funding.
DeDartment of Public Information ("Question of Palestinell-related activities Budget for Biennium 198401985 7 I The DPI has conducted many programs and media-related activities on the question of Palesti ne through articles, press releases newsletters, and pamphlets, particularly since 19
82. Then in 1983 Resolution 38/583, and in 1984, Resolution 39/49C instructed the DPI to cooperate and coordinate its activities with the Palestine Committee.
Resolutio n 38/583 requested the DPI to disseminate all information on the activities of the U.N. relating to Palestine expand publications and audio-visual coverage of those activities, and publish newsletters and articles on what the resolution called IIIsraeli v i olations of the human rights of the Arab inhabitants of the occupied territories, and organize fact-finding missions to the area for journalists.Il DPI also was told to disseminate information on the results of the International Conference on the Question of Palestine. DPI published a newsletter on the Conference in Arabic, English, French and Spanish. A pamphlet containing the Geneva Declaration on Palestine and resolutions subsequently adopted by the General Assembly was issued in all the official U.N. l a nguages. This year, DPI has published a booklet on the work of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices and plans also to publish a booklet entitled Wighlights of U.N. Activities on the Question of Palestine.1f It also intends to produce a s hort film on Palestine. DPI radio'news broadcasts on hhe.question of Palestine, meanwhile, were expanded in spent by the DPI on the IIQuestion of PalestineIv-related activities 1984 and 19
85. The U.S withholds the equivalent of 25 percent U.N. Information Centers: Budget for Biennium 1984-1985 24.5 million.
The PL08s message is broadcast throughout 'the world by the DPI via its U.N. Information Centers in 67 countries. These centers publicize each November 29 as the International Day of Solidarity with th e Palestinian People. Under instructions from the General Assembly DPI gives this day "the highest priorityell The DPI's Mahmoud El-Said refuses to disclose the contents of the official reports on the DPI November 29 activities I In Washington, D.C., the U .N. Information Center disseminates Palestine Committee films. The Palestine Information Office in 13. U.N. Document A/AC. 198/85 8 b Washington may also use the services of the U.N. Informahion Center particularly the films, for its own propaganda purpos e s. Other probable Washington users of DPI films are the Palestine Congress of North America, established in 1979 to serve as an umbrella group for more than 50 North American-based, pro-PLO organizations, the American Friends Service Committee (well known as pro-PLO), and various pro-PLO campus groups, especially at George Washington University. When Congressman Jack Kemp (R-NY) requested information on the use of DPI films on the Middle East, he was refused.
The U.S. does not withhold any funding of U.N. Information Centers. It is not clear how much of the Centers' funding is spent on The Question of Palestinell activities, given their secrecy.
The Department. for Technical Cooperation for Development Budget for Biennium 1984-1985 132,600.
This Departmen t of the U.N. Secretariat has hired "consultants and general temporary assistance pertaining to the sovereignty over resources of the occupied Arab territ~ries of channeling aid to pro-PLX) activists. It is mandated by the same resolution as the report re garding the permanen& sovereignty over national resources in the occupied territories This funding is a means The U.S. does not withhold funding for this activity.
Covering up U.N. outlays that help the PLO is so widespread that ske tching a complete picture of the U.N.Is PLO activities is virtually impossible. Palestine Division Director Yogasundram admits, for example, that the entire Department of Conference Services provides various kinds of help to PLO conferences and seminars. The cost of sending delegates to Palestine Committee conferences, meanwhile, can is clear from the March 26, 1985, Summary Record of the Palestine Committee meeting held on March
21. It states that Itbecause of financial constraints, representatives of th e German Democratic Republic, Pakistan, Tunisia, and Yugoslavia, could attend the Asian Seminar (on Palestine) as members of the delegations of other U.N committees, such as the Council for Namibia, the Special Committee on Decolonization, and the Special Committee Against Apartheid The i be easily disguised as an expense not related to PLO activities. This I I 14. The PIO, funded by the PLO to the tune of about S200,OOO per year, circulates PLO propaganda materials to U.S. government officials, has sponso r ed a weekly radio program and gives frequent interviews to the media, including NBC's "Today Show," Cable News Network, National Public Radio, and others. It has offices at 818 18th Street, N.W., and 1337 22nd Street, N.W 15. See U.N. Document A/C.5/38 14 7 9documents state that "their costs should be charged against the budgEts of those committees"--and not to any cost center linked to the PLO.
In sum, with the exception of the Palestine Committee, the Palestine Division, and the Department of Public Information, the U.S.
State Departqent has failed to withhold funding from U.N. agencies that support PLO-related activities-at least as far as can be determined from telephone communications with the State Department in the absence of written documentation.
THE PLO MISSION AT THE U.N. AND THE PLO PRESENCE IN THE U.N.
While the Department of State has stopped short of declaring the PLO to be a terrorist organization, Robert B. Oakley, Acting Ambassador at Large for Counterterrorism, told The Heritage Foundati on that the State Department is 'Ion a facto 'special look-out'll in the case of any PLO member who applies for a visa to come to the U.S I1because so many PLO members turn out to be terrorist nature of the.PLO, which has never renounced terrorism, the U. S . now should consider ordering that the PLO Mission in New York be closed Given the The 1947 Headquarters Agreement between the U.S. and the.U.N codified as U.S. law P.L. 357 in 1947, states that Ikothing in the Agreement shall be construed as in any way d iminishing, abridging, or weakening the right of the U.S. to safeguard its own se~urity roles of the PLO and Yassir Arafat in terrorist activities clearly are a threat to the security of the U.S. and its citizens. The murder of Leon Klinghoffer in the Ach i lle Lauro hijacking confirms this--as do many other incidents The The inherent foreign affairs power of the President under the Constitution, moreover, allows Ronald Reagan to close not only the PLOIs observer mission to the U.N. but also the Palestine In f ormation Offices in Washington. Whether aw PLO offices' staffers are American citizens has no bearing on this 16. U.N. Document A/AC.1931/SR.115, p. 4 17. While the Constitution protects freedom of speech and of assembly, there is no unlimited right to wo r k for, or make contracts with, a foreign entity. The right of the federal government to control commercial dealings with foreign parties was established in 1936 by the Supreme Court. See U.S. vs. Curtis-Wright Corooration, 299 U.S. 304 57 21'6 81 L.Ed, (1 936 10 I I I I I I I i I The 1947 Headquarters Agreement also gives the U.S. the right to regulate the activities of PLO members working for the U.N.
Secretariat. It is difficult, however, to determine who in the Secretariat is a member of the PLO. Zehdi T erzi, the PLO's representative, told The Heritage Foundation that Itmembers of the PLO fill the quotas of other Arab nations, such as Jordan-ll This matter merits further inquiry THE U.N. AS A MEGAPHONE FOR THE PLO Media The Division for Palestinian Right s in the Secretariat organizes meetings of journalists in cooperation with the DPI. A team of ten prominent journalists and media representatives from around the world visited Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria from April 23 to May 11 1984, to be educated o n "The Palestine Question The regional seminars for journalists on the question of Palestine were organized on June 4-7, 1984, in Vienna, Austria, where seventeen European journalists representing the press, radio, and television media participated. Fourte e n journalists from various African nations participated in another seminar held at Arusha, Tanzania, August 28-31, 1984 bn February 5-8, 1985, a conference was held for journalists in the North American-Caribbean region at Bridgetown, Barbados, and anothe r for Asian journalists in Jakarta, Indonesia, from May 7-10 19
85. Latin American journalists met June 10-13 in Georgetown, Guyana.
At the Georgetown media seminar, for example, Yassir Arafat reiterated the PLOIs determination to continue its I'struggle and resistance to the hostile policies of Israel and the U.S.1118 At the same seminar, Rashleigh Jackson, Guyana's Minister for Foreign Affairs, stated that the seminar was part of a program of action drawn up by the Palestine Committee, thereby assisting "in the overa1.l coordination of the strategies of the supports of the Palestinian cause all over the world Israel was invited to participate in these media seminars but refused, not wishing to legitimize them cannot be denied. According to Tommy Koh, Sin g apore's Ambassador to the U.S. and its former U.N. representative If you were in Asia or Africa or Latin America 15 years ago and you asked people about the Palestinians, everyone looked puzzled. Today, students The impact of all these activities is diffi c ult to assess but 18. Division for Palestinian Rights, Vol. VIII, Bulletin No. 6, June 1985 11 - intellectuals, and political activists in every country know about the Palestinian cause and,sympathize with it. Thatls the result largely of the U.N. People are always underestimating the importance of the U.N. in altering perceptions. Illg Ambassador Koh told The Heritage Foundation that the PIX) has virtually won the propaganda game in the U.N which provides one-sided information on the Middle East.
Ambassad or Koh also noted that he was appalled by the way the Western media covered the 1982 war in Lebanon. At a State Department conference on December 10, 1984, dealing particularly with the impact of the 1975 llZionism is racism Resolution, Ambassador Koh cit e d the West German press, which actually equated the Israeli's behavior in the 1982 war with the Nazis. This never would have happened, charged Koh had the ground for such a comparison not been carefully prepared years ago by the United Nations when it equ a ted Zionism with Racism. The corrupt arithmetic of the General Assembly has indeed become the ''conventional wisdom of international society--or at least of that part of international society which likes to think of itself as vlenl.ightenedlt and fitprogr e ssive. I believe, theref ore, that I am justified in concluding that the impact of the Zionism as racism resolution has been enormous, and that, by serving to legitimize anti-Semitism, it 'continues to pose a major threat to the survival of Israel and the Jewish people.
Nonaovernmental Oraanizations The mobilization of U.N.-based nongovernmental organizations NGOs) is one of the most signiffcant recent successes in the PLO's effort to use the U.N. American NGOs seem particularly gullible.
U.N. and NGO Act ivities on the Question of Palestine, published by the Division for Palestinian Rights, outlines the spectrum of such example, PLO representative Terzi urged Ilconsciousness raising techniques such as polls and surveys to promote American identification w i th the Palestinian cause as defined by the PLO The activities. At the July 10-12, 1985, meeting of NGOs in New York, for In 1983, the International Conference on Palestine held in Geneva extended invitations only to NGOs that were supportive of the PM. By excluding some NGOs for politic# reasons, this conference violated Article 71 of the U.N. Charter. In the aftermath of the 19. The New York Time8 Magazine, September 16, 1984, p. 62 I 20. For a detailed analysis of this episode, see Harris
0. Schoenberg's forthcoming book A Mandate fo r Terror: The U.N. and the PLO (New York: Steimatzki Publishing Company 12 conference, there' has been accelerated NGO activity throughout the world on behalf of the PLO.
A number of Soviet-linked NGOs.play an active role in coordinating pro-PLO activities. Among them are the World Peace Council, the Women's International Democratic Federation, the World Federation of Democratic Youth, the International Organization of Journalists, the Internationa l Association of Democratic Lawyers, and the Christian Peace Conference. The Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organization is particularly active.
CONCLUSION The U.N. provides the PLO with financial support. More important, the U.N. anoints the PLO with legi timacy. Conferences seminars, and meetings produce countless papers which are translated in many languages, broadcast, and distributed to opinion makers throughout the world.
U.N. with foreign ministers and other dignitaries on behalf of the PLX). And non governmental organizations affiliated with the U.N further disseminate the PLO's message. The U.N. Secretariat, through the Department of Public Information and the Palestine Division produce films and pamphlets promoting the PLO. No matter that this viol a tes the Charter's provision that the Secretariat be impartial-as well as the Charter provision that the integrity of member states (in this case, Israel) should not be compromised by actions of the U.N Palestine Committee members lobby inside the The U.S. at last should take strong measures to stop the U.N from being exploited by the PLO. Specifically o The State Department should enforce vigorously current law requiring that the U.S. withhold its portion of all U.N. funds that example, the expenses of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices, funds for consultants Ilinvestigatingl' the conditions of Palestinians in the territories of the West Bank and Gaza, and other hidden expenses. support activities benefiting the PLO. This should include, for o The U.S. should consider closing the PLO Observer Mission in New York City and the Palestine Information Offices in Washington D.C o In conformity with Senate Joint Resolution 98 passed on August 15, 1985, which urges the U.S. Representative to the U .N to take all appropriate actions necessary to erase" the "Zionism is racism1 resolution, the U.S. should seek to rescind the resolution in the General Assembly by requesting another vote to that effect I I 13 - o The U.S. Congress should hold hearings t o determine the extent of PLO activities in the U.N o The State Department should enforce vigorously the amendment to the State Department appropriations bill introduced by Senator Nancy Kassebaum (R-KS) requiring the U.N. to introduce weighted voting on b u dgetary matters or else reduce the U.S. contribution to the U.N. to 20 percent. This measure also would allow greater U.S. leverage on I the U.N. budget investigations as a prerequisite of further U.S. funding for the U.N The U.S. should demand, for examp l e that the DPI disclose information regarding the activities of U.N. Information Centers on issues related to the Middle East I I I o The U.S. Congress should require General Accounting Office o The State Department should declare the PLO "a terrorist org anization 1 Juliana Geran Pilon, Ph.D.
Senior Policy Analyst 14
