Israel seeking place on UN Security Council

JERUSALEM - Israel is attempting to capitalise on what it sees as an increase in international contacts - including with Muslim countries - by seeking a place on the UN Security Council.

It has indicated it wants to join other countries in being allocated a rotating place on the Security Council for the first time in its 57-year history.

The move follows contacts including an unprecedented meeting between the foreign ministers of Israel and Pakistan which both countries said was partly in recognition of Israel's withdrawal of troops and settlers from Gaza.

Sylvan Shalom, the Israeli foreign minister, told the UN General Assembly in New York this week that a seat on the Security Council would help Israel "take its rightful place, as a country with full and equal rights in this institution".

Israel was for years not a member of any voting block because of hostility of Arab countries in the region until 2000, when it was admitted to "West European and Others Group".

Although membership of the group has allowed Israel for the first time to have a vice-president of the General Assembly, its UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman, membership of the group was conditional on it not having a Security Council seat.

This was to ensure that the frequency with which the existing members took their seats was not reduced.

Mr Gillerman chaired a session of the General Assembly this week for the first time since the late Abba Eban chaired one in the early 1950s.

Mr Shalom said that he had met with counterparts from more than ten Muslim and Arab countries this week - something he said that would have been unthinkable even two years ago.

The highest profile foreign figure to back the bid is the US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton.

Mr Bolton told Jewish leaders in New York that it was no longer tenable to have a single UN member that is not eligible to be a Security Council candidate.

He said several days ago in a meeting with Jewish leaders in New York that the situation must end of having a special category consisting of one country in the world that is a member of the UN but cannot submit its candidacy for the Security Council.

Mark Regev, the foreign ministry spokesman, said yesterday that "in a new climate and atmosphere", Israel judged that the right time had come to signify its desire to be a candidate for Council membership.

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