THE UN AND ITS AGENCIES CELEBRATED ON ISRAELI POSTAGE STAMPS
United Nations Day on 24 October has been celebrated since 1948. It marks the anniversary of the entry into force of the UN Charter three years earlier in 1945.
With the ratification of this founding document by the majority of its signatories, including the five permanent members of the Security Council, the UN officially came into being. In 1971, the UN General Assembly recommended that the day be observed by member states as a public holiday.
States are admitted to membership in the UN by decision of the UN General Assembly upon the recommendation of the UN Security Council. On 15 May 1948, shortly after the declaration of its establishment, the State of Israel applied for membership of the UN, but the application was not acted on by the UN Security Council.
Although supported by the votes of the US, Argentina, Colombia, the Soviet Union and Ukraine, Israel’s second application was rejected by the Security Council on 17 December 1948. Syria had voted against, and Belgium, the UK, Canada, China (Taiwan) and France had abstained.
Israel’s application was renewed in 1949 after elections that year. This time, through its Resolution 60 on 4 March 1949, the Security Council voted 9 to 1 in favour of recommending Israeli membership, with Egypt voting no and the UK abstaining. Those countries supporting the membership of Israel were: China (Taiwan), France, the US, the Soviet Union, Argentina, Canada, Cuba, Norway, and the Ukrainian SSR.
After the Security Council recommendation was presented to the UN General Assembly for consideration, the requisite two-thirds majority approving the application to admit Israel to the UN was met on 11 May 1949. The UN General Assembly Resolution 273 was supported by 37 to 12, with 9 abstentions.
Those countries that voted against the UN General Assembly Resolution were six of the then seven members of the Arab League (Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen) as well as Afghanistan, Burma, Ethiopia, India, Iran and Pakistan. Those abstaining were: Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, El Salvador, Greece, Siam (Thailand), Sweden, Turkey and the UK.
Although Israel is the only country in the world to have been legally constituted through the deliberations and pronouncements of both the League of Nations (the international body governing the post-1918 international system) and the UN, (the body governing the post-1945 international system), Israel’s relationship with the UN has been a stormy one.
Indeed, when he opened the 61st UN General Assembly in September 2016, the then Secretary-General Kofi Anan (1938-2018) admitted that Israel was often unfairly judged by the international body and its various organisations. Supporters of Israel, he said, ‘feel that it is harshly judged by standards that are not applied to its enemies’. He went on, ‘too often this is true, particularly in some UN bodies’.
Successive Secretary Generals have acknowledged this. In April 2007, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that Israel had been treated poorly at the UN and that bias was an issue. During a visit to Israel in August 2013, he said that because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israel has been ‘weighed down by criticism and suffered from bias — and sometimes even discrimination’.
Then, in April 2017, in his first public address to a Jewish group, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the World Jewish Congress: ‘As secretary-general of the United Nations I consider that the State of Israel needs to be treated as any other state’.
Although Israel had been a UN member state since 11 May 1949, it wasn’t until 13 June 2016 – 67 years later – that the first Israeli diplomat was elected to head a permanent UN committee. In June 2016, the Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon was chosen to lead the UN Legal Committee. His election was supported by 109 out of 198 UN member states, with most of the opposition coming from Arab nations.
Israel has been unable to participate fully in UN activities through its exclusion from the UN Regional Groups. These Groups had been created in 1961, and from the outset Israel’s participation in the Asia group had been blocked by Arab countries within its membership. Until it gained admittance to the Western European and Others Group (WEOG) in 2000, Israel had been locked out of a regional activity for 39 years.
Israel has been a member of the International’s Labour Organization (ILO) since 10 May 1949 – effectively since its independence – and it has been placed in the Europe ILO Region. Indeed, the ILO was the first international organization joined by Israel upon its establishment, though unofficial ties had been established between the Jewish community in pre-state Israel and the Organization many years before, by representation of the Histadrut (the Israel Trade Unions). Formed in 1919, during the years of the League of Nations, the ILO is the UN agency mandated to advance social justice and promote decent work by setting international labour standards.
UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, originally known as the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, was created by the UN General Assembly on 11 December 1946.
Originally set up to meet the needs of children and mothers affected by the Second World War, in 1953 it became a permanent part of the UN system dropping the words ‘international’ and ’emergency’ were from the name of the organization but retaining the original acronym, UNICEF. Today it addresses the long-term needs of children and women in developing countries everywhere.
UNICEF relies on contributions from governments and private donors, and the Israeli Fund for UNICEF – a volunteer-led education and fundraising organization – was first founded in 1969.
Founded in November 1946, UNESCO (the UN Educational and Scientific and Cultural Organization) is a specialized UN agency meant to contribute to promoting international collaboration in education, sciences, and culture in order to increase universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and human rights along with fundamental freedom proclaimed in the UN Charter. Israel joined UNESCO on 16 September 1949, but withdrew along with the USA on 31 December 2018 claiming that the organization had an anti-Israel bias.
Israel became a member of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) in December 1949, joining the specialized agency of the UN (founded in 1874) which co-ordinates postal policies among member nations.
The idea of the UN issuing its own postage stamps was a notion first proposed by Argentina in 1947, then in 1951 an agreement was reached with the US postal authorities allowing UN stamps denominated in US currency to be used at UN Headquarters only. The first UN stamps were issued in US dollar denominations on UN Day, 24 October, 1951. They were an immediate success and sold out within days.
Similar postal agreements were reached with the Swiss and Austrian postal authorities.
On 11 December 1968 , an agreement between the UN and the Swiss Postal Telephone and Telegraph Enterprise enabled the Geneva office of the UN Postal Administration (UNPA) to issue the first UN stamps in Swiss francs on 4 October 1969 . A similar agreement with the Austrian government on 28 June 1979 enabled the Vienna office of UNPA to issue the first UN stamps in Austrian schillings on 24 August 1979 .
Israeli postage stamps בולי דואר ישראליים 