NEW YORK — The international community’s increased acceptance of Israel in recent years is likely to be tested in the United Nations General Assembly, which opened its session this week.
Advances in the Middle East peace process began to erode the anti-Israel atmosphere that had built up in the international body over the past three years.
But the Netanyahu government’s more hard-line posture has sown fears among Arab nations.
As evidence, Arab foreign ministers in Cairo last weekend threatened to halt normalization of ties with Israel unless there is progress in the peace process.
Some worry that Israel’s hard-won gains will be reversed in this General Assembly session as a result.
“Israel is going to have a tougher time in the General Assembly this year,” said Harris Schoenberg, director of B’nai B’rith’s U.N. affairs and executive director of the Coordinating Board of Jewish Organizations, a U.N. nongovernmental group.
Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy was expected to use his speech to the General Assembly and meetings with foreign ministers next month to build international confidence by making explicit his government’s commitment to peace.
“The commitment to the peace process is bipartisan in Israel,” said David Peleg, Israel’s acting ambassador to the United Nations. “The [new] government of Israel is as committed to the promotion and expansion of peace” as the previous government.
“There is a different emphasis,” he said, “but the commitment is the same.”
But it may be a hard sell in the international body.
The permanent Palestinian observer at the United Nations, Nasser al-Kidwa, made clear he expects a change in atmosphere as a result of the new government.
“The U.N.’s support for the peace process and the agreements [with the Palestinians] will not diminish,” but it is “only normal” that “there will be a more contentious atmosphere.”
The Netanyahu government “openly calls for renegotiating parts of the agreements” and has “clearly indicated it is not abiding by timetables” for implementation already negotiated, said al-Kidwa. He cited as an example the long-delayed redeployment of Israeli troops from most of the West Bank town of Hebron.
“We expect the General Assembly to take action” on the “many violations we believe are being committed by the government and its general lack of compliance,” al-Kidwa said.
He singled out the Netanyahu government’s decision to resume “settlement activity,” which he deemed a violation of international law and of the Israeli-Palestinian agreements.
Said Peleg: “We hope the 51st General Assembly will continue with the trend we’ve seen in the previous two or three [sessions] of adjusting its resolutions to the situation on the ground in the Middle East and progress in the peace process.”
He said Israel would “regret it” if Arab delegations choose to use the United Nations “as an arena to put political pressure on the government of Israel.”
Meanwhile, Israel’s advocates want to see an end to the now-routine resolutions dealing with the Middle East, on matters ranging from Jerusalem to the Golan Heights to Jewish settlements.
Israel’s advocates are also calling for the dissolution of General Assembly committees and divisions in the U.N. Secretariat that they say are anachronistic and serve as propaganda instruments for the Palestine Liberation Organization.
The Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices in the Territories makes no sense “at a time when most of the Palestinian population is being administered by the Palestinian Authority,” Peleg said.
Critics also single out the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, which, said Schoenberg, “spends $6 million a year to propagandize for the PLO.”
Both Schoenberg and Peleg have called for the money to be spent in direct aid to the Palestinians.
Peleg said he also plans in the current session to continue efforts to secure a place for Israel in a regional group.
Israel is the only U.N. member without such a seat, which is a prerequisite to serving on key U.N. bodies, including the Security Council.