Posted on 09/27/2005 11:50:00 AM PDT by SmithL
Two weeks after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was warmly received in the UN, Israel announced on Monday – for the first time –its candidacy for the UN Security Council in 2019.
Ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman formally submitted Israel's application to the Security Council as part of the UN's Western European and Others Group (WEOG) Regional Group.
Each year WEOG sends two of its 29 countries to the Security Council. The next available slot will open only in 2019.
While Israel has never even applied for a seat on the powerful Security Council; every year at least one Arab state from the UN's Asian and African regional groups sits on the influential world body.
There are currently 15 countries on the council – five permanent members, and 10 countries that rotate every two years.
Though 2019 is still a long way off, one Foreign Ministry official said the very act of applying was significant because it reflected the change in Israel's position towards the UN. Israel's attitude has changed from viewing the body as incorrigibly anti-Israel, to seeing it as a powerful group in which Israel should demand equal rights and privileges.
In another Israeli first at the UN, an Israeli-sponsored resolution will be brought for a vote before the UN General Assembly in either late October or early November. The resolution calls for the establishment of a UN-mandated Holocaust Memorial Day to be held each year on January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
The Israeli draft resolution, which more than 30 countries have signed, proposes "an annual international day of commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust."
The resolution also urges member states to develop educational programs to teach the lessons of the Holocaust in order to help prevent future acts of genocide; rejects any Holocaust denial; and "condemns all manifestations of religious intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief, wherever they occur."
I'm not sure why Israel bothers... Course, not sure why we bother either...
Neither UN not its security council will exist by 2019.
Israel turns heat on Hamas after Sharon vote win
Yahoo! News | 09/27/05 | AFP
Posted on 09/27/2005 11:37:30 AM PDT by F15Eagle
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