Pen-Elayne on the Web

Only 133-4? How's That News?

Very few online papers, and no blogs I've visited so far, have talked about last night's lead story on the BBC World News - the 133-4 General Assembly resolution condemning Israel's public plans to "remove" Arafat. When I Googled for international reactions, almost all the ones that didn't begin "Israel Rejects" or "Israel Dismisses" were Arab media outlets. Of American papers, it seems like only the NY Post, unbelievably, puts the focus on the actual resolution rather than the hand-waving dismissals on behalf of two of the four countries to vote against it (the US and Israel, surprise surprise; the others were Micronesia and the Marshall Islands). Together with the news about the gathering in Berlin (which the Beeb described this evening as "welcoming Blair back into the fold"), this might spell a rise in international legitimacy for the UN once again. Nice to see all our heavy-handedness can't totally trash the idea of nations cooperating to try to make this a better world.