The General Assembly rejected by a large margin an Arab resolution sponsored by Oman calling for the suspension of Israel from the current 41st session of the Assembly.
The vote against the Arab move to deny Israel its credentials to the Assembly was 87-41 with 13 abstentions. Seventeen countries were absent when the voting took place.
Israeli diplomats hailed the outcome of the vote as a “victory” for Israel, noting that the vote last year on a similar Arab-sponsored resolution was 83-41, showing an increase of four in the number of countries which opposed the anti-Israeli move this year.
The four new countries that rejected the Arab attempt Tuesday night were Burundi, Mali, Sierra Leone and Papua-New Guinea. In addition, Bulgaria, which last year voted with the Arabs, was absent Tuesday during the vote, joining two other Communist bloc countries, Poland and Hungary, who absented themselves from the votes last year and again Tuesday night. The Soviet Union and the rest of the Communist countries joined in support of the Arabs and against Israel.
Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, declared after the vote: “It is an important victory to the cause of moderation. The extremist bloc is dwindling from year to year to find itself isolated, just where they tried to isolate Israel.”
The Arabs have been introducing resolutions to suspend Israel from the General Assembly each year since 1982, with no success.
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