Notable & Dignified: Israel's U.N. Ambassador In a Duel with Castro's

"Who is this group [the Non-Aligned Movement] representing since the Cold War has already ended?" — Israeli U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman, at a Security Council meeting, February 5, 2008

Responding to Castro's representative at the U.N., the contemptibly-named Isodoro Malmierca, who had accused Israel, in the name of the so-called Non-Aligned Movement, of maintaining a "blockade" on the Gaza Strip (now even the desert is being "blockaded?"), Ambassador Dan Gillerman dismissed Malmierca's charges and the fanthom organization which he claimed to represent with those memorable words.

It is reminds one of King Juan Carlos' confrontation with Hugo Chávez at the Inter-American conference last year. It shows the same impatience with hypocrisy and cant. Of course, it is not a king who said it, but dignity is not the exclusive realm of kings. At a place where diplomatic protocal is a cover for the most uncivil conduct and truth is always inopportune and almost in bad taste, the words of Ambassador Dan Gillerman are all the more to be commended for their uncompromising candor. The so-called Non-Aligned Movement is the biggest anachronism in international politics. Even in its heyday it was nothing but a naked lie. Cuba's prominence in that organization and Castro's election as its head could have left no doubt in anybody's mind that all its members, to one extent or another and absolutely as a collective, were in Moscow's service.

Now that there is no Soviet Union, what master does it serve? To whom does it answer? And what possible relevancy can it have in a world where polarities have changed? The Non-Aligned Movement is nothing more now than an enemy of the West, and, in particular, of the United States and Israel. It is a club of losers and opportunists in the scrabble of geopolitics, worthy of no more consideration than Mr. Gillerman accords it.