Cairo- The League of Arab States expressed its refusal of Israeli endeavour to secure a seat at the UN's Security Council, saying that the League has taken intensive measures to activate its decisions to resume monitoring and challenging the Israeli bid. Over the past year, Israel has been trying to secure one of two Security Council seats reserved for Western governments for 2019-20. According to a statement, Secretary-General of the Arab League Ahmed Aboul Gheit ordered the relevant departments of the Secretariat to mobilize and strengthen Arab efforts in this direction by activating the procedures pertaining to the plan that the Director General had proposed to the Ministerial meeting of the Council of the League, held in Cairo on September 8, 2016. The Secretariat also addressed the permanent delegations of member states of the Arab League to brief them on developments related to the election of the Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations on May 31, 2017, as Vice-President of the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly. The statement warned that the election of Israel in this position reinforces Israeli's confidence that it become fully normalized within the United Nations, saying that it seeks to gain non-permanent membership in the Security Council for the years 2019 and 2020 to increase its international confidence during the coming period.
