NEW YORK – The United Nations General Assembly will elect five new non-permanent members of the Security Council for the 2017-2018 term on Tuesday. The council is composed of 15 members. Five of them – China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA – are permanent and hold veto power. The 10 remaining ones are elected for two-year terms. Tuesday's election aims to replace Angola, Malaysia, New Zealand, Spain, and Venezuela, which will be vacating their seats at the end of 2016. The rest of the current non-permanent members – Egypt, Japan, Senegal, Ukraine and Uruguay – will be replaced at the end of 2017. Permanent member states vote for the new members by secret ballot. Any of the 193 member states of the United Nations is eligible for a seat and will be chosen if they receive at least two-thirds of the votes. Sources familiar with the process told The Jerusalem Post that Israel had already submitted its candidacy for the 2018- 2019 term. It is one of the 68 UN member states that have not yet been members of the Security Council. The Security Council is expected on Wednesday to renew the mandate of the UN's peacekeeping force in the Golan Heights: the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF). UNDOF was established to monitor the cease-fire between Syria and Israel after the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
