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Israeli Ambassador Dani Gillerman
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| By Associated Press September 20, 2006 |
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Israel's ambassador to the United Nations criticized the U.S. administration on Wednesday for granting an entrance visa to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and allowing him to address the U.N. General Assembly.
The Israeli delegation to the General Assembly, including Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, boycotted Ahmadinejad, who has said he wants to wipe Israel off the map and dismissed the Holocaust as a myth.
"We didn't think it was correct to honor this man with our presence. I am very sorry that he was even allowed to speak at the U.N.," Danny Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the U.N., said.
"I ask myself if the American administration didn't have an opportunity, even at the expense of violating its agreements with the U.N., not to give an entrance visa to this man," Gillerman told Israel Radio.
However, the Jerusalem Post quoted a diplomatic official in Jerusalem as saying his appearance in New York was actually an Israeli public relations boon.
"It is difficult to demonize a nation like Iran, but it is easier to demonize a man," the official said. "When people see him, when they see the demonstrations surrounding his visit, when they hear about his pronouncements and hear him called the 'new Hitler,' they will see that this is not someone they want with his finger on the nuclear button."
But Hillel Neuer, executive director of Geneva-based UN Watch, questioned the logic that allowing Ahmadinejad to speak might be in Israel's interests.
"It is doubtful whether giving the world's foremost Holocaust denier the most prestigious platform in the world can ever be considered a good idea," he said from Geneva. Neuer said that by appearing at the General Assembly, Ahmadinejad would acquire a degree of legitimacy.
Neuer said that while he understood the hope that "putting a scoundrel in the public eye might reveal his true character, I'm concerned that every forum he gets is encouragement to anti-Semites worldwide, and that he will be firing up many in the Muslim world."
Iran, according to Foreign Ministry officials, will be the central focus of Livni's address to the General Assembly Wednesday afternoon. She is expected to say that there is no place in the family of civilized nations for a country like Ahmadinejad's Iran.
In his address to the General Assembly on Tuesday, Ahmadinejad took aim at U.S. actions in Iraq and Lebanon and accused Washington of abusing its powers in the U.N. Security Council.
The United States has repeatedly called for U.N. sanctions on Iran, which has so far rejected international demands to halt uranium enrichment, a key step to developing nuclear weapons. The United States and Israel say Iran's nuclear program is aimed at developing weapons, but Tehran insists it is for peaceful purposes.
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