Credentials of representatives – Letter from Israel

CREDENTIALS OF REPRESENTATIVES TO THE FORTY-FIFTH SESSION

OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Letter dated 12 November 1990 from the Permanent Representative of

Israel to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

I wish to refer to the letters dated 26 October 1990, 1 November 1990 and 6 November 1990, addressed to Your Excellency by a number of representatives (A/45/672, A/45/688, A/45/708). These letters contain gratuitous and unfounded attacks on the credentials of the delegation of Israel to the forty-fifth session of the General Assembly, which are utterly extraneous to the work of the Credentials Committee and constitute a deliberate attempt to abuse the credentials procedure. I will confine myself to the following observations:

(a) The first report of the Credentials Committee makes it perfectly clear that the credentials of the delegation of Israel, having been examined by the Committee in accordance with rule 28 of the rules of procedure of the General Assembly, were found by it to be in due form and proper order. Accordingly, they were accepted by the Committee at its first meeting on 24 October 1990, alongside the credentials of some 133 other delegations (A/45/674). This notwithstanding, the signatories of aforementioned letters have seen fit to introduce matters completely irrelevant to the work of the Credentials Committee;

(b) The accreditation process in the General Assembly is strictly procedural, and is not the occasion for any Member State to engage in polemics contained in the aforementioned letters;

(c) Aspersions cast on credentials which are in due form, and have been already accepted as such by the Credentials Committee, are incompatible with the letter and spirit of the United Nations Charter and the rules of procedure of the General Assembly;

(d) The credentials procedure applies to all Member States in accordance with the principle of sovereign equality, on a non-discriminatory basis. Any attempt to single out a Member State in this regard would deal a severe blow to the inviolable principle of universality. The United Nations was founded on the fundamental notion of the sovereign equality of all Member States. Discriminatory practices would undermine the core of the United Nations Charter and cripple the ability of the United Nations to perform its primary function the maintenance of international peace and security.

I have the honor to request that this letter be circulated as an official document of the General Assembly under agenda item 3.