Here in the “capital of the world,†which is New York's characteristically modest description of itself, people seem to have survived their annual immersion in foreign affairs with but the faintest disruption to their lives. We knew all along that they could do it, despite the overblown forecasts of impending disaster, including the menace they were instructed by television to dread most of all: traffic jams.
Clyde Haberman offers his take on the news.
What tends to be forgotten by many New Yorkers - including, and perhaps especially, their politicians - is that the only reason their city dares call itself the “capital of the world†without being laughed out of the room is the presence of the United Nations.
The United Nations adds a few billion dollars a year to the local economy, while its noxious aspects are eminently ignorable most of the time. Despite that reality, New Yorkers love few things more than to hate the United Nations.
They really love to hate it in a week like the one that is drawing to a close, when world leaders appeared by the barrelful for their autumnal gabfest, generally referred to in polite circles as the convening of the General Assembly.
They really and truly and deeply love to hate it when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the bile-spewing president of Iran with one of the creepiest smiles this side of the Joker, shows up, as he does each September, to take his turn at the lectern.
Another reality is that there is no way for the United States to deny entry to Mr. Ahmadinejad - A-jad to some - without causing more of a diplomatic tempest than he is probably worth. Part of the price of having the United Nations headquarters here is an obligation to open the gates even to loathed leaders wishing to attend these sessions.
So the week played out pretty much according to a dog-eared script. Street protesters and tabloid crafters of hyperthyroidic headlines denounced A-jad in the strongest language possible, and could thus feel good about themselves. He, no doubt caring not a fig what his critics said, got to give his speech (described by some who heard it as not so much vile as incoherent). New York police officers got to put in for welcome overtime. And nothing changed as a result of all this to make the Middle East a better, or at least a less volatile, region.
In short, everything went as usual.
In some quarters, there was extra hyperventilating this year because A-jad was assigned a speaking slot on Wednesday, which happened to be Yom Kippur, Judaism's holiest day. Given the man's threats against Israel and his denial of the Holocaust, this bit of scheduling struck some as unbearably outrageous.
Never mind that it wasn't Yom Kippur at the United Nations. Never mind that 26 countries besides Iran were assigned speaking slots that day, including several with deplorable histories in regard to Jews, among them Yemen, Egypt, Italy, Poland, Ukraine and Romania. Never mind, too, that Israel has suffered, and survived, a good deal worse on Yom Kippur than a rotten speech - like the start of an Arab war against it in 1973.
Some of those with Yom Kippur shpilkes, a splendid Yiddish word for a state of agitation, were similarly bent out of shape because President Obama did not meet with the visiting Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Back to the never minds. Never mind that the president had another pressing matter on his agenda, an imminent elect ion, and had no time for extensive conversations with any of the visiting leaders.
That notwithstanding, lamentations arose from some whose worldview boils down to a belief that the president of the United States should nod his agreement with whatever the Israeli prime minister says. He is “throwing Israel under the bus,†they cried. This is a damnation often hurled at Mr. Obama, oddly so. His administration is no different from its predecessors in not only riding the same bus as Israel but also in providing a good deal of fuel for it, in the form of billions of dollars a year in economic and military aid.
Anyway, Mr. Netanyahu, after giving his own speech at the United Nations on Thursday, got to meet with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg at Gracie Mansion. Surely that was reward enough for anyone.
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