TheWeekInCongress

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Week Ending July 16, 2004

House Resolution 615 expressing the sense of the House in support of full membership of Israel in the Western European and Others Group at the UN.

BRIEF

The resolution comes at a time when the UN General Assembly is considering a motion to insist that Israel take down the ‘wall’ it is building between Israeli occupied land and that occupied by Palestinians.

The resolution explains that ‘since the mid-1960s, the member states of the United Nations have been divided into five groups, including the Western European and Others Group (WEOG) and the African, Asian, Latin American, and Eastern European groups’ and that the UN ‘increasingly relies on this ``Group System'' to facilitate its work and two leading United Nations organs, the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council, have passed numerous resolutions granting this system a central role in United Nations elections.’

Israel was granted temporary membership in the WEOG group and must reapply every four years. As such, Israel is not a full member of the UN and does not have the rights and privileges of full membership which could include a vote on the UN Security Council, a vote of considerable weight regarding international matters. Israel is also not allowed to run for positions in major UN bodies.

The House, in the Resolution, accuses the UN of violating its charter ‘including the right of states to be treated in accordance with the principle of sovereign equality and the right to vote and participate fully in the UN general Assembly.’

The Western European and Others Group includes Canada, Australia, and the United States and the Resolution holds that Israel is linked to Western European and Others Group member states by strong economic, political, and cultural ties and share the commonality of being in the Western Democratic tradition.

The House then resolves that the President should direct the Secretary of State and the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations to seek an immediate end to the persistent and deplorable inequality experienced by Israel in the United Nations; that US interests would be well served if Israel were afforded the benefits of full membership in the Western European and Others Group at the United Nations so that it could fully participate in the United Nations system; that consistent with section 405(a) of division C of H.R. 1950, as passed the House of Representatives on July 16, 2003, ``the Secretary of State and other appropriate officials of the United States Government should pursue an aggressive diplomatic effort and should take all necessary steps to ensure the extension and upgrade of Israel's membership in the Western European and Others Group at the United Nations''; and that the Secretary of State should continue to submit to Congress on a regular basis a report which describes actions taken by the US Government to encourage the Western European and Others Group member states to accept Israel as a full member of their group and describes the responses thereto from the member states.

Sponsor: Rep Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL-8^th)

Vote: Passed House 418 to 0, 1 voting present (RC 377)