An Arab-sponsored move to suspend Israel from the General Assembly by denying its credentials was thwarted here today. The vote against the Arab move was 80 against, 41 in favor and 20 abstentions.
This is the fourth consecutive year in which the Arab countries have tried to deny the credentials of Israel to the General Assembly. Israel’s credentials are brought up for approval before the General Assembly along with 120 other member-states. The Arabs introduced an amendment today to the resolution which said that all credentials should be approved except those of Israel.
The amendment today was co-sponsored by 18 Arab states, which are members of the Arab League. Three Arab League countries, Egypt, Jordan and Oman, did not co-sponsor the resolution.
The Arab move to suspend Israel from the General Assembly was thwarted by a motion introduced by Sweden which called on the Assembly to take “no action” on the Arab-sponsored amendment. The motion was introduced by Anders Ferm, the Ambassador of Sweden, a behalf of the northern countries, which also include Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway, in addition to Sweden. The vote on the Swedish motion was 80 in favor, 41 against, 20 abstained.
The amendment to suspend Israel was introduced by the Ambassador of Kuwait, Mohammad Abulhshan He said that Israel’s credentials should be suspended because Israel was not “a peace-loving state,” and because Israel was in constant violation of the UN Charter.
At a press conference after the Arab move was rejected, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Binyamin Netanyahu, described the result as a “significant defeat for the Arab bloc” which wanted to deny Israel’s credentials as a “prelude to its expulsion” from the UN.
Netanyahu noted that the vote this year to reject the suspension of Israel was the same as last year, but last year, he pointed out, the proposal to suspend Israel was sponsored by Iran alone. This year it was sponsored by almost the entire Arab bloc.
He said the prestige of the Arab bloc has suffered as a result and that today’s vote showed that many countries which in previous years would not dare defy the Arabs have done so today. Most of the countries supporting the Arab move were Communist or Moslem states. But two members of the Communist bloc, Poland and Hungary, did not participate in the vote. Some diplomats noted that those countries recently had diplomatic contacts aimed at improving relations with Israel.
The Iranian representative, in a vitriolic anti-Israel speech before the vote, called for the “annihilation” of the “non-entity Zionist state.” He called for the “purge and cleansing of the Zionist filth” in Palestine.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
