ISRAEL - May 27 - Membership Given in UN Group.

After 40 years of exclusion, Israel is given temporary membership in a UN regional group that opens the way for its eventual election to key UN bodies. Israel's UN envoy, Yehuda Lancry, says he received a letter, on May 26, from the current chairman of the West European and Others Group (WEOG), ambassador Peter van Walsum of the Netherlands, informing him of the group's decision. Lancry calls it "an historic turning point" in the relationship between Israel and the UN, and says his government would respond formally within a few days. (Many UN committee posts as well as 10 rotating seats on the Security Council are nominated by 5 regional groups to retain a geographical balance. Although some states never get nominated, only Israel could not compete at all. Opposition from Arab and other countries has prevented Israel from joining the Asian group, which corresponds to its geographical region.)

Van Walsum's letter, the result of months of negotiations, said: "On behalf of WEOG members I have the pleasure of informing you that, in the light of Israel's current inability to join the Asian group and taking into account the understandings set out below, WEOG welcomes Israel as a full member of WEOG on a temporary basis". Israel's membership will be for an initial 4 years, after which it will be subject to confirmation by the group. The "understandings", or conditions, referred to by Van Walsum will prevent Israel from submitting candidates for any contested UN posts for 2 years and would bar it from a few posts for considerably longer. In addition to the 15 members of the EU, the group includes Australia, New Zealand, Canada and others. The US is a member for some purposes.

(Elections to most UN bodies, including the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, General Assembly committees and the World Court, are organised on the basis of the 5 regional groups. The groups try to avoid intramural squabbles by agreeing in advance which of their members will be offered as candidates. Israel, a UN member since 1949, is the only UN member barred from any regional group since the system developed in the early 1960s. As a result, it has waged a long battle, with support from the US, to join WEOG. Pres. Clinton, Secretary of State Albright and US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke had lobbied Europeans on Israel's candidacy. The conditions that bar Israel from competing for seats in UN bodies for 2 years were drawn up by the EU and then endorsed by all WEOG members.)

Van Walsum wrote that after 2 years WEOG would consider Israel's candidature for vacant posts "on a case-by-case basis and support them where previously agreed by the group". He said Israel's entry would not affect existing schedules allocating forthcoming vacancies in 4 specific UN bodies. These are: the Economic and Social Council, whose WEOG candidates have already been designated (until 2021), the governing council of the UN Development Program (until 2007), the executive board of the UN Children's Fund (also until 2007), and the UN AIDS program (until 2012). As part of its drive for WEOG membership, Israel in 1999 requested a legal opinion from then-World Court Pres. Sir Robert Jennings of Britain. Jennings wrote in Nov. 1999 that Israel's exclusion from the regional group system was "both unlawful and strikes at the root of the principles on which the UN exists". Jennings said: "I venture to suggest that Israel's exclusion should no longer be tolerated, and that it is now an issue of primary importance for the organisation itself to see that it be remedied", adding: "So long as it continues, the organisation is itself in breach of its own charter".