UNITED NATIONS - Arab nations will oppose an

Israeli resolution condemning Palestinian attacks

on Israeli children that is awaiting a vote this

week in a UN General Assembly committee, a

Palestinian diplomat said on Monday.



The Israeli resolution,

pending in the assembly's

Social, Humanitarian and

Cultural Committee, mirrors

an Egyptian-sponsored

resolution adopted by the

panel last week that demands

Israel protect Palestinian

children.



Palestinian envoy Nasser al-Kidwa said Arab

delegates, meeting at UN headquarters,

concluded the Israeli draft had been written

"as a bad joke" and should be voted down.

"Frankly, we were not amused," al-Kidwa told

reporters after the meeting. "This is an

anti-Palestinian resolution, much more than it

is a pro-Israeli children resolution."

"The Europeans say they will abstain. I can't

see anybody voting in favor of this," he said.

"We hope they [the Israelis] will wake up and

forget about this."

Israel has been the target of hundreds of

critical resolutions at the United Nations. The

measure on Israeli children is the first the

Jewish state has introduced in more than a

quarter century.

It expresses concern "about the continuous grave

threat to Israeli children from Palestinian

terrorism" and "demands that the Palestinian

Authority respect its obligations to undertake

effective operations aimed at confronting all

those engaged in terror."

The Egyptian draft resolution was passed last

Thursday by a vote of 88-4, with 58

abstentions. The United States, Israel,

Micronesia and the Marshall Islands voted

against it, while the 15 European Union nations

and Canada were among those abstaining.

Israel's deputy UN ambassador, Arye Mekel, told

the committee last week that resolution was

one-sided because "we believe that all the

world's children are deserving of equal

protection, including Israeli and Palestinian

children."

But al-Kidwa said the situation of Palestinian

children was unique in that "all of them are

collectively deprived of every single right in

the Convention on the Rights of the Child," a

global treaty that came into force in 1990.

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Looks like it's open season on Israeli kids.