Eliot Engel: “the United Nations discredits itself once again, unfortunately, by having one set of rules for Israel and one set of…”

“the United Nations discredits itself once again, unfortunately, by having one set of rules for Israel and one set of rules for everyone else; and here is but another example of that kind of hypocrisy that unfortunately has permeated the United Nations. We will soon be talking about a ruling by an international court; and when I spoke about that ruling several days ago on the House floor, I said that one set of rules for Israel at the U.N. and one set of rules for everyone else does not help anybody, but just helps to discredit the United Nations. Now, there are 191 members of the United Nations, as my friend from California has pointed out, and only one of them is given third-class status. Israel has been a member of the United Nations since the founding of the Jewish state in 1948, and yet it has never been allowed to serve on the Security Council of the United Nations, where you have one undemocratic despotic nation after another serving on the Security Council, sitting on the Human Rights Commission, but not democratic Israel. So what this resolution does is it simply expresses the sense of the House of Representatives in support of full membership of Israel in the Western European and Others Group at the United Nations. As was pointed out, this will enable Israel to serve in all bodies of the United Nations, to have a vote in all bodies of the United Nations, and to serve on the Security Council if it is elected.”