Israel Should Indulge the U.S. : Why its understandable fury with the U.N. hurts Bush’s efforts

For many Israelis, the United Nations is little more than a house of cards, with the cards invariably stacked against them. Nothing that happened this past week will soften that dismissive view.

Start with the Security Council resolution that condemned Israel for its police action against Arabs at the Temple Mount that left at least 19 Palestinians dead. Move on to the effort to force an on-site investigatory team down Israel’s throat. Israelis don’t expect to get a fair shake from the U.N., and so the Shamir government’s refusal to cooperate with the investigation is less controversial in Israel than in the U.S.

Life is very complicated these days, however, and one wishes that the Shamir government had acted with more finesse. As the progenitor of more than 200,000 troops in the Persian Gulf and the chief cheerleader of the broadest military-action coalition since World War II, the Bush Administration needs all the help it can get from Jerusalem as it tries to stare down Baghdad.

But the Shamir government refuses to indulge Washington’s request that Israel cooperate with the “disinterested” U.N. investigation. Israel takes the line that accepting that mission would raise questions about its sovereignty over Jerusalem. But that issue existed prior to, and independent of, the mission. And how could the U.N. team reach conclusions any worse for Israel than the Security Council resolution? Though Washington slaved to water it down, the resolution managed to condemn the Israeli reaction without criticizing the Palestinian pelting of Jewish worshipers that precipitated the incident.

It’s perhaps too much to say that as a consequence of the Shamir position, Baghdad’s justification for its invasion and rape of Kuwait will appear less preposterous. But it certainly doesn’t hurt Saddam Hussein when Israel does something that knocks Iraq’s aggression off the front pages. Iraq’s near-isolation has been a singular achievement of U.S. diplomacy. At this point no U.S. ally should do anything to undermine that gain.