Congress: 105 · Status: active · Israel/Palestine classification: pro-Israel
Data (JSON) — machine-readable record of this bill (identifiers, sponsor, classification, actions, and the member-by-member vote breakdown).
Official record on Congress.gov — full text, actions, and cosponsor history for S 2092.
Sponsor: Smith, Gordon H. (R-OR)
Equality for Israel at the United Nations Act of 1998 - Expresses the sense of the Congress that: (1) the United States must promote an end to the exclusion of Israel from any of the United Nations regional blocs, including rotating membership on the UN Security Council; and (2) the U.S. Ambassador to the UN should take all steps necessary to ensure Israel's acceptance in the Western Europe and Others Group (WEOG) regional bloc (membership which includes the non-European countries of Canada, Australia, and the United States). Directs the Secretary of State to report to appropriate congressional committees on efforts taken to achieve such goals.
This bill expresses Congress's position that the US should push for Israel to gain membership in the UN's Western Europe and Others Group (WEOG), a regional bloc that determines access to various UN committees and rotating Security Council seats. It directs the State Department to report back to Congress on diplomatic efforts to achieve this goal.
Israel's exclusion from UN regional blocs has prevented it from rotating onto the Security Council and other bodies. This bill targets that exclusion as a form of discrimination and commits US diplomatic resources to reversing it, which is why it classifies as pro-Israel advocacy at the institutional level.