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ahmadinejad va a new york. E alla columbia university

Autore: Orma



New York Grudgingly Opens the Door
Manny Fernandez, The New York Times, 24 settembre 2007

Fidel Castro, visiting New York City in 1960, complained about the treatment he was getting at a Manhattan hotel and stormed out. Its managers later put up for auction the chicken feathers they said he left behind in Room 806.

Uganda’s brutal dictator, Idi Amin, had a statement read in 1975 at the United Nations General Assembly in which he called for the “extinction of Israel as a state.” He had started his day in a somewhat happier mood, smiling for the cameras at East 45th Street and First Avenue, where he and two of his children dedicated a plaque at the site of a future Uganda mission.

New York City — home to the United Nations and some of the most ethnically diverse communities on the planet — often finds itself in the curious position of being grudgingly hospitable to some of the world’s most controversial heads of state and loathsome tyrants.

The arrival yesterday of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president best known here for criticizing the United States and calling the Holocaust a myth, is the latest example of the diplomatic dance New York has long performed with international firebrands.

Last week the Police Department denied Iran’s request to allow Mr. Ahmadinejad to visit ground zero, but Columbia University is allowing him to participate in a World Leaders Forum today. The president spoke last night to a sympathetic and mostly Iranian audience at a Midtown hotel.

When such leaders visit New York, often to address the General Assembly, the smallest of gestures convey the most powerful of messages, and a polite snub can speak volumes. Security precautions, housing accommodations, travel itineraries and the raising of flags become matters of intense negotiations and dispute.

In 1974, as Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, made plans to visit, officials offered to house him and his delegation on Governors Island or some other secluded area, and suggested he travel by helicopter or boat to United Nations headquarters. An Army helicopter ended up flying him there from Kennedy Airport, and he and his colleagues lived not in seclusion but in style, at the Waldorf Towers in Manhattan.

In 1938, as Nazis persecuted the Jews overseas, Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia and Police Commissioner Lewis J. Valentine created a special police squad to protect visiting German officials and the German consul general in New York. It was led, not by accident, by Jews: Capt. Max Finkelstein, president of the department’s Shomrim Society; Lt. Jacob Lickers; and Sgt. Isaac Goldstein. The idea had perhaps been inspired by former President Theodore Roosevelt. When Mr. Roosevelt served as police commissioner in the late 1800s, he assigned 40 Jewish police officers to keep the peace at a speech given by Hermann Ahlwardt, a visiting anti-Semitic German author.

During his 1960 trip to the city, Mr. Castro complained of the “unacceptable cash demands” by the management of the Shelburne Hotel at Lexington Avenue and 37th Street. He and the Cuban delegation moved into the Hotel Theresa in Harlem instead. If forced to, he could have found housing anywhere, he told reporters, even in Central Park.

“We are mountain people,” Mr. Castro said. “We are used to sleeping in the open air.”

Mr. Castro, displeased with the reception at the Shelburne, the hotel that would later auction off the chicken feathers, was greeted by courteous crowds in Harlem.

He and other leaders soon discover this about their trips to New York: They may be unwanted by some New Yorkers, but they are loved by others.

In October 1979, when Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the deposed shah of Iran, was secretly flown to New York for treatment of a gall bladder ailment at a Manhattan hospital, anti-shah demonstrators marched outside as a plane towing a pro-shah banner flew overhead.

Even President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, who came to New York last September and called President Bush the devil at the United Nations, was greeted by cheers and applause — and the actor Danny Glover — the next day when he spoke in Harlem. He spoke about the cheap heating oil he was sending to poor New Yorkers and mocked the president, who he said tried to walk “like John Wayne.”

Kenneth T. Jackson, a history professor at Columbia University and the editor of the Encyclopedia of New York City, said the city had more than a legal duty to accommodate controversial figures from abroad.

“It’s a moral obligation as a great city,” Professor Jackson said. “New York’s record is one of toleration of difference. Political difference, ethnic difference, whatever it is. It’s not a perfect record, but it’s better than the record of any other place in the world, and it’s something we need to celebrate.”

The city provides some of the most ardent critics of the United States with the same gifts it bestows on millions of ordinary tourists: the simple pleasures of sightseeing.

It was unclear how much of New York Mr. Ahmadinejad, who is to address the General Assembly tomorrow, would get to see on his trip. He is allowed under international law and diplomatic protocols to travel freely within a 25-mile radius of Columbus Circle.

Last night, at the New York Hilton, Mr. Ahmadinejad addressed people invited by the Iranian mission. The speech was closed to the news media.

Some of those invited said that while they did not agree with all of the president’s positions on matters like the role of women in Iran, they stood behind him on the involvement of Israel and the United States in the Middle East.

After the speech, some in the audience said Mr. Ahmadinejad downplayed the interest Iran had in developing nuclear weapons. Mina Z. Siegel, an Iranian-American, said he called building a nuclear weapon “a waste of money” and characterized Iranians as “very peaceful.”

Another Iranian, Ali Zareinejad, 68, said: “What he said is true, a reality that the whole world needs to accept. He said we are peaceful all over the world. So we don’t need an atomic bomb.”

Earlier yesterday, elected officials and students held a rally at Columbia to protest the university’s decision to invite him to speak on campus. Another demonstration is scheduled at the university today.

“He should be arrested when he comes to Columbia University, not speak at the university, for God’s sake,” said Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who noted that his mother is a survivor of Auschwitz. “I call on New Yorkers to make the life of Ahmadinejad as he is in New York miserable.”

About the same time, another visiting dignitary received an altogether different greeting. President Leonel Fernández of the Dominican Republic went to the Bronx, where he was given one of the highest New York honors. He threw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium.


Ahmadinejad Arrives for New York Visit
Nahal Toosi, Associated Press, 24 settembre 2004 (10:13 AM US/Eastern)

NEW YORK (AP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, facing protests and tabloid headlines calling him "evil" and a "madman," stirred debate Monday about free speech ahead of his appearance at Columbia University.

Columbia President Lee Bollinger has promised to grill Ahmadinejad on subjects such as human rights, the Holocaust and Iran's disputed nuclear program. The Iranian leader previously has called the Holocaust "a myth" and called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

Bollinger said Monday it was a question of free speech and academic freedom.

"It's extremely important to know who the leaders are of countries that are your adversaries. To watch them to see how they think, to see how they reason or do not reason. To see whether they're fanatical, or to see whether they are sly," he told ABC's "Good Morning America."

Ahmadinejad is to speak and answer questions at a Columbia forum Monday, followed by a scheduled address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday.

The New York Daily News' front page on Monday read: "THE EVIL HAS LANDED." The New York Post called Ahmadinejad the "Madman Iran Prez" and a "guest of dishonor."

Tensions are high between Washington and Tehran over U.S. accusations that Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons, as well as helping Shiite militias in Iraq that target U.S. troops—claims Iran denies.

"Well, you have to appreciate we don't need a nuclear bomb. We don't need that. What need do we have for a bomb?" Ahmadinejad said in a "60 Minutes" interview that aired Sunday, taped earlier in Iran. "In political relations right now, the nuclear bomb is of no use. If it was useful it would have prevented the downfall of the Soviet Union."

He also said that: "It's wrong to think that Iran and the U.S. are walking toward war. Who says so? Why should we go to war? There is no war in the offing."

Before leaving Iran, Ahmadinejad said the American people have been denied "correct information," and his visit will give them a chance to hear a different voice, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Ahmadinejad has appealed to the American people before, distinguishing between the population and their government. Recently, he told a television show that Iran wants peace and friendship with America. Since coming to power in 2005, Ahmadinejad also has sent letters to the American people criticizing President Bush's policies in the Middle East.

Washington has said it is addressing the Iran situation diplomatically, rather than militarily, but U.S. officials also say that all options are open. The commander of the U.S. military forces in the Middle East said he did not believe tensions will lead to war.

"This constant drum beat of conflict is what strikes me, which is not helpful and not useful," Adm. William Fallon, head of U.S. Central Command, told Al-Jazeera television, which made a partial transcript available Sunday.

Ahmadinejad's scheduled address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday will be his third time attending the New York meeting in three years.

His request to lay a wreath at ground zero was denied by city officials and condemned by politicians who said a visit to the site of the 2001 terror attacks would violate sacred ground.

Police cited construction and security concerns in denying Ahmadinejad's request. Ahmadinejad told "60 Minutes" he would not press the issue but expressed disbelief that the visit would offend Americans.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, hundreds of young Iranians held a series of candlelight vigils in Tehran.

"Usually you go to these sites to pay your respects. And also to perhaps air your views about the root causes of such incidents," Ahmadinejad told the network.

Columbia canceled a planned visit by the Iranian president last year, also citing security and logistical reasons. This time, security on campus was tight hours ahead of his arrival, with barriers blanketing the grounds and police patrolling.

Protest signs emblazoned with some of Ahmadinejad's most notorious quotes about Israel were posted on campus, many by the Columbia Barnard Hillel group.

Sam Krevor, a 25-year-old graduate student in environmental engineering, said he's watched some interviews with the Iranian president before.

"I appreciate that the event is happening, but even when he gets hard questions he's not particularly interested in answering them," Krevor said. "I think it's doubtful that the actual event will be that enlightening."

Ahmadinejad's visit to New York is also being debated back home. Some in Iran think his trip is a publicity stunt that hurts Iran's image in the world.

Political analyst Iraj Jamshidi said Ahmadinejad looks at the General Assembly as a publicity forum simply to surprise world leaders with his harsh rhetoric.

"The world has not welcomed Ahmadinejad's hardline approach. His previous address to the assembly didn't resolve any of Iran's foreign policy issues. And no one expects anything better this time," he said.

But conservative lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi said it was a good chance for Iran to air its position.

"This trip gives the president a good chance to meet world leaders and inform them of Iran's rightful position," IRNA quoted Boroujerdi as saying.

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