The United Nations today voted 143-1 for the United States to submit to binding arbitration on whether it can shut down the PLO observer mission. The United States did not vote, and Israel cast the only negative vote. Assembly resolutions are expressions of international will but are not legally binding and there is no mechanism to enforce them. They are often ignored or defied. Israeli Ambassador Benjamin Netanyahu said the Palestine Liberation Organization is a terrorist group that has no place in the United Nations. Netanyahu stalked out of the chamber when the PLO representative, Zehdi Labib Terzi, said Israel's vote showed contempt for the world body and ``the norms of civilized behavior.'' Soviet Ambassador Aleksander Belonogov said in an interview after the voting that the dispute with the United Nations was a ``self-inflicted wound'' on American prestige and peace efforts in the Middle East. The assembly also voted 142-0 for a resolution asking the World Court in the Hague for a ruling on whether the United States has the right to refuse arbitration. Neither Israel nor the United States voted on the measure. The arbitration would be conducted by an independent three-member panel, with the United States and the United Nations each appointing one member and the third appointed jointly. The United States, which has not yet moved to close the PLO mission, said it considered the emergency meeting of the 159-nation assembly ``premature and unnecessary.'' The United States has rebuffed arbitration on the same grounds. ``It remains the intention of this government to find an appropriate resolution to this problem in light of the charter of the United Nations, the headquarters agreement and the laws of the United States,'' U.S. Ambassador Herbert Okun told the assembly after the vote. The resolutions were sponsored by the Soviet Union, which accused the United States of ``lawlessness,'' several Soviet allies and satellites, members of the movement of nations professing non-alliance with either superpower and the Philippines, a U.S. ally. The resolutions say closing the mission would violate the 1947 treaty under which the United States became U.N. headquarters. The pact provides for binding arbitration. The PLO has non-voting, observer status in the General Assembly and exercises considerable influence at the United Nations, which regards it as the only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, many of whom live under Israeli occupation. The PLO mission, a four-story townhouse on Manhattan's fashionable Upper East Side, has a staff of three political officers and two secretaries. Scores of organizations and nations, including most of America's closest allies, said during the three-day emergency session that closing the mission would undermine the independence of the world body. Many said the move is further eroding the already diminished U.S. prestige at the world body. Others warned it could cripple American peace efforts in the Middle East. The State Department agrees with the United Nations that the anti-terrorism legislation ordering the mission closed violates the headquarters agreement. But Attorney General Edwin Meese III reportedly said he plans to enforce the measure anyway. He is expected to announce his decision later this month. The State Department closed down the only other PLO office in the United States, an information office in Washington, in what turned out to be a futile attempt to forestall the legislation. Underlying the bitter confrontation over the mission is the nagging question of what the United Nations can do to achieve peace in the Middle East. The world body has repeatedly called an international peace conference that would include the PLO and the Soviet Union, among others. The United States, which wants direct talks, and Israel, which refuses to deal with the PLO, resist this plan. Several speakers in the assembly debate noted that the United States has never accused anyone accredited to the mission of terrorism or expelled anyone attached to the mission. In December, the assembly passed a resolution 145-1 asking the United States not to close the PLO mission. Israel, which regards the PLO as a terrorist group bent on the destruction of the Jewish state, cast the only negative vote.
