The US hope in denying Arafat a visa had been to prevent the PLO being recognised by the UN as the legitamate representative of the Palestinian people. The UN, simply decamped to Geneva and did that anyway? How is that not backfiring?
Backfire is producing a result worse than had nothing been done at all. So in that limited goal you mention, the shooter just missed.
In fact, the political gain to the US, for US politics in the whole affair as the UN takes its ball and leaves may be viewed as a positive. Again, the eye of the shooter.
Kim Jong Un has never left North Korea since he took power. He was supposed to visit Russia in 2015 but cancelled. In the extremely unlikely event he did want to address the UN, as a head of state he would have to apply for an A visa, but they waive the visa fee, so that’s something 
https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/other/diplomat-foreign-government-official.html
Funny, if you read this (short) Wiki entry on him it says that he’s referred to by his peers as ‘Dr. Chuckles’ because he continually spouts the DPRK’s propaganda as the truth. Of course if he didn’t I’m sure three generations of his family would be shot…
True as far as it goes, but your analysis is missing half the story.
Any country doing stuff in the international sphere has two distinct audiences: the other countries and their home populace. And very frequently what plays well or effectively to one group plays the opposite to the other group.
In this specific case, the US gov’t did care about the (mostly positive) domestic reaction to stonewalling Arafat and the PLO, ineffectual as it may have been.
But the US also cared about how all the countries would react to the stonewall and how that would complicate the 187-dimensional chessboard for the next few dozen moves. We cared about what our allies, our friends, our enemies, *and *the various spectating countries of various factions all thought. Pretty much the entire US professional foreign policy establishment & commentariat at the time thought the US’s move was a short-sighted unforced error. Arguably, subsequent events proved them correct.
Bottom line:
You’re right that in this case the US decided to play to the domestic crowd. But understand that was the *net *of balancing these two offsetting factors, not a one-way play with a single obvious answer. And yes, it backfired. By the professional’s scorecard the backfire was significantly worse than the negligible benefit. For the yokels playing along at home chanting “USA! USA!”, it seemed like a clean win. They were wrong.
This dilemma appears a lot in the foreign affairs arena of every country having a populace with a voice.
There are many many countries that would love to host the UN HQ. A 2005 study estimated it brings $850 million a year in net direct income to New York and much more in the indirect flow on effect.
http://www2.nycbar.org/Publications/reports/show_html_new.php?rid=40
Then of course I bet the intelligence community also loves having the UN HQ in New York. Makes it much cheaper / easier to spy on all the diplomats !
At one point, there was a grand plan to locate the headquarters in Greenwich and Stamford, Connecticut and part of Westchester County, covering up to 100 square miles.
Edited to add, I think the land on which the UN headquarters is located was donated by the Rockefeller family.
Yes, but in this case, it’s the UN that can give or refuse accreditation.
There has been a weird related case in France. A French citizen was prosecuted for some shaddy arm deal with, IIRC, Nigeria. Nigeria made him his representative to the UNESCO, whose seat is in Paris. France had no say in the matter, and this status gave him diplomatic immunity. As a result, this French citizen, living and working in Paris, couldn’t be arrested or prosecuted.