I chastized the president of Columbia University for inviting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on campus to speak only to hurl political insults at him.
I did so because, even though I agreed with everything the president said, I thought his ambush of Ahmadinejad was impolitic and impolite. Having invited him, the president should have been a gracious host and left it to the audience to express their disgust with the things Ahmadinejad said by hurling intermittent, though not disruptive, boos at him, or by walking out.
By the same token, I commend UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon for inviting Ahmadinejad to speak at this week’s UN summit on racism in Geneva, Switzerland. I do so because, unlike the president of Columbia, Ban Ki-Moon showed him the respect he deserves not only as an invited guest but also as a duly elected head of state.
No doubt, just like the president of Columbia, Ban Ki-Moon deplores Ahmadinejad’s now-trademark rantings against Israel. But where better to air and challenge his anti-Semitism than at a UN summit on racism. Moreover, isn’t it always better to engage leaders like him than to shun them…?
This is why I find President Obama’s decision to boycott this summit so puzzling. It’s not as if he had to attend in person. But it smacks of Bush’s “my-way-or-the-highway” style of diplomacy that he did not allow any representative from the US to participate.
In fact it betrays the organizing principle of his foreign-policy strategy – of engaging America’s enemies – that he ordered this boycott because he feared the summit would be “dominated by unfair criticism against Israel.”
After all, nothing said at this summit or even memorialized in its communique would be binding on any member state. And just as the representatives from many European countries did, those from the US could have walked out in protest when Ahmadinejad launched into his diatribe about Israel being a “cruel and racist regime.”
Sticks and stones can break my bones by words can never hurt me….
Frankly, if Arab states want to vent aggression against Israel by hurling insults at UN summits, I say let them. It certainly beats the alternative….
Related commentaries:
Ahmadinejad unbowed…at Columbia University
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Glenn says
There are many very good reasons why giving Ahmadinejad a speaking role at a conference on racism is outrageous – not the least of which being his whole-hearted support for the leader of the most recent genocide (http://www.flickr.com/photos/53911892@N00/2735098701/). Why not invite Al-Bashir and Mugabe to lecture while they’re at it? Thank goodness we did not participate in this joke of a conference.