- NEW YORK -- Israel has launched
a campaign to get the United Nations to declare a moratorium on all resolutions
that denounce Israel or demand that it change its policies without parallel
denunciations or demands regarding Palestinian terrorism.
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- Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Gillerman presented
the idea Tuesday at a special meeting with the UN ambassadors of 25 European
states who either are, or are slated to become, members of the European
Union. Gillerman was accompanied by David Granit, the Foreign Ministry's
deputy director-general for international organizations, who flew in from
Jerusalem for the meeting.
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- Israel is arguing that a moratorium on one-sided anti-Israel
resolutions is required by the road map peace plan, of which the EU and
the UN are cosponsors, along with the United States and Russia. The road
map calls for an end to anti-Israel incitement.
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- A UN source told Haaretz on Tuesday that the European
diplomats were surprised by the proposal and declined to respond immediately,
and Israeli officials refused to speculate on the likelihood that they
will ultimately accede. However, Gillerman plans to continue pushing the
issue via individual talks with key UN players in the two weeks remaining
until the start of the UN's next session. He and Granit met yesterday with
the UN ambassadors from Denmark and India.
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- Israel also plans to raise the idea in meetings with
senior State Department officials in Washington this weekend.
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- "We presented the Europeans with a challenge,"
Granit said yesterday. "The success of our meeting with the European
ambassadors was that it took place at all."
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- The initiative refers specifically to 21 resolutions
on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that are discussed by various UN committees
every year and then forwarded to the General Assembly, where they enjoy
an automatic majority. Israel is proposing that the committees not discuss
these resolutions this year and that the General Assembly postpone a vote
on them until next year.
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- Until now, Israel has largely ignored these resolutions,
on the theory that it is incapable of changing the UN's behavior. However,
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom decided recently that Israel should make
a concerted push to detach the European states from the UN's anti-Israel
majority. He also sent a letter to all his colleagues in the EU urging
them to correct the "distorted situation" created by this automatic
anti-Israel majority.
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