The General Assembly’s Administrative and Budgetary Committee voted overwhelmingly to accept the advisory opinion rendered last summer by the International Court of Justice which held that all member states must share the costs of financing the operations of the United Nations Emergency Force which is stationed on the Egyptian-Israel frontier in the Gaza area.
Israel voted with the majority of 75 for the resolution. There were 17 negative votes and 14 abstentions. The Committee also recommended that the Assembly set up a working group to study the criteria for sharing the costs of the UN peace-keeping operations. An earlier working group of 15 members was enlarged to 21 members.
On the main issue of acceptance or non-acceptance of the Court’s advisory opinion, there was a hot fight by a number of members including the Russian and Arab blocs, backed in this instance by Belgium. This grouping tried to change the wording so that the Assembly would not “accept” the Court’s opinion, but only “note” that it had been submitted. This move was defeated on a separate roll call in which again Israel voted for the word “accept.”
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