Tear Down This Wall
BY BENNY AVNI
June 13, 2005

Some call it an apartheid wall; others, a security fence. I use the neutral barrier to describe the ugly construction of concrete columns, mesh fences, high-tech cameras, and manned security booths along First Avenue. In the name of safety, it infringes on the lives of citizens and creates facts on the ground as territories' futures are disputed.
The United Nations has been erecting this construction over the fast few months. Will some brave observer mission dare to convene an emergency session of the General Assembly? Will the assembly tell the International Court of Justice that the construction is illegal? Will it ask for a advice on a remedy?
The U.N. barrier has slowly been built between 42nd and 49th streets to replace an old fence that proved inadequate when a disgruntled New Yorker last year jumped over the low wall near First Avenue's flag row and started shooting indiscriminately at U.N. windows. No one was hurt in the incident.
Security at Turtle Bay is the star of The Interpreter, Sydney Pollack's movie about an imaginary African nation where, it seems, only blond Australian beauties can actually speak. (Nicole Kidman's mastery of several tongues, including the made-up Koo language, is the basis for the shallow idea that talking is superior to war). Early in the film, the compound is thoroughly evacuated after a metal-detector failure.
Back to reality: I was inside the building during last year's shooting. No one was ever evacuated and I, for one, only learned about the event quite some time afterward. As it turned out, the shooter was armed with a small pistol, but he could just as easily been carrying an RPG. The United Nations faces real security dangers - savvy New Yorkers therefore take in stride the eyesore snaking along First Avenue. It interferes with traffic and disrupts bus services, but since September 11, 2001, we all agreed to forgo certain conveniences.
The United Nations, meanwhile, is expanding its turf, even as the future of its Turtle Bay territory is disputed by Albany legislators, the State Department, Congress, and the world body itself.
After 60 years of neglect, U.N. management discovered that its own building required periodic maintenance. Presenting itself as the unique victim of abuse by such uncontrollable natural forces as asbestos and crumbling heating pipes, the United Nations has devised an ambitious $1.2 billion renovation plan financed by a Washington loan.
As my Sun colleague Meghan Clyne has reported, the plan was ill-conceived and, according to a host of New York developers, too costly. Nevertheless, the idea of building a swing space on a playground across 42nd Street to house the United Nations as the renovation takes place was pushed ahead - only to be stopped by Albany legislators who said that the United Nations may not unilaterally annex the occupied territory of Robert Moses Park.
Last week, the General Assembly began to pick up the pieces. Creative ideas, like temporarily housing the organization on cruise ships docked in the East River, seemed increasingly attractive. The United Nations, meanwhile, noticed some unused areas on its own territory. A vast on-campus park the size of five city blocks is beautiful to behold over fences, but some U.N. employees, who are not allowed there for security reasons, call it Koo Gardens. The only person ever to use it was Ms. Kidman's character in The Interpreter, who contemplated the meaning of life there in her imaginary African language.
As these refurbishing battles rage, the security barrier on First Avenue continues to grow. As the reasoning goes, while the complex issue of territorial disputes between world body and host nation and city may take a long time to resolve, real dangers need to be addressed immediately.
In two separate pieces of legislation last week, Congress demanded that the United Nations cease frivolous attacks on one of its members. One of them, authored by Rep. Henry Hyde, a Republican of Illinois, threatens cutting half of the American funding to the United Nations if, among other ills, it does not stop singling out Israel. If it wants to comply, the United Nations might consider either tearing down its own wall on First Avenue, or rescinding its demand that Israel dismantle its more effective and better-planned security measure of a similar nature.