ISRAEL FINALLY ADMITTED TO A U.N. REGIONAL GROUP

By Edith M. Lederer

 

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS July 1, 2000 - http://www.seattlep-i.com/national/isra012.shtml UNITED NATIONS-More than 50 years after Israel became a member of the United Nations, it will finally get the chance to be represented on key U.N. bodies in New York.
For Israeli U.N. Ambassador Yehuda Lancry, acceptance into one of the U.N. regional groups that decides on committee memberships marks a turning point in the Jewish state's stormy relationship with the United Nations and an end to decades of isolation.
For U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, it marks the end to a grave injustice and a victory for the Clinton administration, which decided to publicize a decades-old, behind-the-scenes campaign to find a region that would accept Israel.
Under U.N. rules, regional groups decide who fills the 10 rotating seats on the Security Council and other key U.N. committee assignments. Israel was the only U.N. member that was not part of a regional group, because Arab nations have repeatedly blocked its admission to the Asian Group-where it belongs geographically.
Last Friday the U.N. regional group of European, North American and other countries invited Israel to become a temporary member, with some conditions. On Tuesday, Lancry sent a formal letter of acceptance to the Netherlands' U.N. Ambassador Peter van Walsum, who currently heads the West European and Others Group, or WEOG, as it is called.
Why, after years of opposition from several European countries, was Israel finally admitted?
Lancry said Israel started campaigning for membership in WEOG after the 1993 Oslo accords, which laid the groundwork for the current Middle East peace process, but without success.
Soon after Kofi Annan became U.N. secretary-general in January 1997, he raised the issue of Israel's exclusion. On a visit to the Middle East in March 1998, he said, "this anomaly should be corrected" and insisted that the equality of all states be upheld.
Lancry credited Annan's "exceptional courage" and Holbrooke's formidable diplomatic skills in expressing the Clinton administration's determination "to put an end to this longstanding inequity."