Buy the U.N. a 1-Way Ticket to Geneva

One of the things I don’t like about the PLO is its sense of humor.

Take PLO funnyman Abul Abbas, killer of Leon Klinghoffer. Klinghoffer, you may remember, was in a wheelchair aboard the Achille Lauro cruise ship in 1985 when Abbas tossed him overboard.

Abbas was convicted of this murder in absentia in Italy and sentenced to life. But this did not prevent Abbas from taking his seat of honor as a member of the PLO’s executive committee at the big Palestine National Council meeting in Algiers a few weeks ago.

Along with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, Abbas was a genuine celebrity. And was not at all shy about giving interviews.

So when reporters asked Abbas exactly how Klinghoffer, a U.S. citizen, ended up in the Mediterranean, Abbas quipped: “Maybe he was trying to swim for it.”

In PLO circles, Abbas is known as a laff riot.

But the grins soon faded around the PLO council table after Yasser Arafat got the stunning news that he was not welcome in the United States to make a speech to the United Nations.

The PLO is officially listed by our government as a terrorist organization. And at its meeting in Algiers, the PLO refused to denounce terrorist attacks within Israel and the occupied territories.

This means that any act of terrorism conducted inside Israel is justified, according to the PLO. Stopping a passenger bus and killing everyone on board? Justified. Breaking into a nursery school and machine-gunning the children? Justified. Planting a bomb in a tourist site and blowing up people from all over the world? Justified.

That’s because while the PLO may not control any territory, it does control its language. And it says that acts of murder within Israel are not terrorism but military actions. And if Americans get killed in these “actions” or in “actions” like the one aboard the Achille Lauro, that is their tough luck.

And the PLO can always say later that maybe the victims were trying to swim for it.

Yet Yasser Arafat wanted to come to the United States for a little more publicity. He had come to the United Nations in 1974 with a holster on his hip. A PLO spokesman later said the holster was empty. A U.N. security guard said there was a gun in it.

And Arafat’s speech seemed to indicate the latter. “I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter’s gun,” he told the delegates. “Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.”

The PLO has sponsored numerous acts of terrorism since then. And Arafat’s message has not changed greatly. “I can always come back to our PNC (Palestine National Council) and declare that moderation does not pay,” he threatened a few weeks ago, when his request for a visa to the United States was turned down.

The visa was denied by one of the few members of the Reagan Administration who takes terrorism seriously: George Shultz.

Though Ronald Reagan has made several brave speeches denouncing terrorism, he had no trouble selling arms to Iran, for instance, even though he knew that Iran had paid for the bombing of our Marine barracks in Beirut.

Shultz opposed the arms deal and he opposed Arafat coming to New York. Because, he said, Arafat “knows of, condones and lends support” to acts of terrorism.

Shultz has been blasted by our allies, by columnists and editorial writers, and by other members of the Reagan Administration. The lame-duck act of a bitter man, people are saying. A slap in the face of the new “moderate” PLO, others are saying. No way to treat a superstar, the United Nations is saying.

To more fully express its outrage, the United Nations will move its meeting to Geneva so Arafat can speak there. This is the first time the United Nations has convened outside the United States since it came to New York in 1946.

I find only only one thing wrong with this: After the meeting, the United Nations intends to come back to the United States.

I don’t see why it should bother.

If it is truly outraged by the U.S. denial of a visa for Arafat, it should express that outrage by finding another country to stay in and pick up its expenses.

I wish it good luck.

The United States became the host to the United Nations when we were still the wealthiest country in the world. We aren’t anymore. And the United Nations is just another burden we could live without. I am not talking about the United States withdrawing from the United Nations, I am just talking about somebody else housing it for the next few decades.

An immediate benefit to the United States would be the reduction of people with diplomatic immunity on our shores. “Diplomats” (actually immunity extends way beyond true diplomats to their spouses, children and others) have been arrested in this country for the crimes of murder, rape, heroin smuggling and the keeping of slaves. To name a few.

None of these people can be convicted, because they have immunity. And not only can they perpetrate outrageous crimes against U.S. citizens, but they also cannot be compelled to pay any bills. Not even parking tickets. Especially not parking tickets.

New York spends millions protecting these diplomats, but loses more than $2 million a year in the parking tickets they refuse to pay.

So who needs these guys?

Let the Swiss keep them. Or, if the Swiss are smart enough to refuse, let the United Nations set up on a cruise ship and sail the world’s international waters.

And if the delegates don’t like that?

Well, they can always swim for it.