Anti-U.N. sentiment is spreading in the state Legislature, with at least one Democrat, Assemblyman Dov Hikind of Brooklyn, joining the opposition to expanding and renovating the world organization's headquarters on the East Side of Manhattan.

Mr. Hikind, the deputy majority whip, told The New York Sun yesterday that he will fight any legislation that helps the United Nations, which he called a "cesspool" of racism, anti-Semitism, and opposition to Israel. He predicted other members of the Assembly majority will take the same position.
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"I intend ... to get up on the floor and to speak out as strongly as I possibly can against this cesspool called the United Nations," Mr. Hikind said. "I intend to speak on the subject and to do everything humanly possible to stir things up and get people excited. I don't want to do anything to help the United Nations."
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"The United Nations is certainly viewed by many as a den of iniquity," Senator Serphin Maltese, a Republican of Queens, said. "When they refer to one of our closest allies, Israel, as some kind of Zionist oppressor, it certainly rubs me the wrong way. ...I'm not particularly enamored of the United Nations as a deliberative body. It's certainly not fulfilling the promise of 1948."

- posted by Jean @ 7:53 AM |