The State Department has denied Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his approximately 80-member delegation visas to attend the United Nations General Assembly later this month. Abbas, serving as president of the Palestinian National Authority for the 20th year after being elected for four, hoped to make a triumphant appearance in New York as the beneficiary of Hamas terrorism, with countries ranging from Australia to Canada to France recognizing Palestinian statehood.
The Trump administration is now considering calls to ban the Iranian delegation from shopping in big-box stores such as Costco and other visa restrictions on the leaders of civil war-torn Sudan and Zimbabwe. A leaked list of Somalia’s 32-person delegation, which includes the wives and children of even minor politicians and politicians who have no pending business at the U.N., deserves limits. The annual assembly in New York is not an entitlement for dictators and terrorism sponsors to have a junket — only those with real business, perhaps foreign heads of state and their closest nonfamily aides, should receive U.S. visas.
