TEHRAN Ninety-two countries voted in favor, six against and 46 abstained in a Friday night vote on the UN General Assembly resolution, which was drawn up by Palestinian delegates and sponsored by Arab and Islamic nations as well as Cuba.
The resolution singled out Israel for "the excessive use of force ... against Palestinian civilians".
It also demanded that Israel prevent "illegal acts of violence by Israeli settlers".
Israel, however, rejected on Saturday the resolution claiming that it is "completely one sided".
According to Reuters, countries of Algeria, Andorra, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Chile, China, Colombia, Ivory Coast, Cuba, Cyprus, Djibouti, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gambia, Ghana, Greece, Guinea, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Jamaica, Jordan, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Monaco, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Syria, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Tanzania, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe voted in favor of the resolution.
On the other hand negative votes were given by 6 countries of Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Tuvalu and the United States. Also 46 countries of Albania, Antigua-Barbuda, Australia, Barbados, Benin, Britain, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Estonia, Fiji, Germany, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Poland, Romania, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Sierra Leone, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Macedonia and Tonga voted in abstention at the Friday's session.
Afghanistan, Angola, Bahamas, Belarus, Bhutan, Burundi, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gabon, Georgia, Guinea-Bissau, Honduras, Iraq, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Moldova, Rwanda, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Tajikistan, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu and Yugoslavia were the countries which did not vote for the resolution.
Meanwhile, the fate of Bait-ul-Moqaddas (Jerusalem), the spark for a wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence, has spurred Arab leaders to set aside their differences and come together at Saturday's emergency Arab summit in Cairo.
The 22-member Arab League convened the summit, the first since 1996, after bloody clashes that erupted when Zionist opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited Bait-ul-Moqaddas's Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's holiest shrine after Mecca, on September 28.
Diplomats said the violence had alarmed Arab leaders, but the perceived violation of Al-Aqsa's sanctity was also a driving force behind what Arabs have dubbed the Aqsa summit.
"Bait-ul-Moqaddas is the only issue that seems to unite the Arabs.
It is the rallying cry," said a senior Arab diplomat.
"When politics in the Middle East takes on a religious dimension, the situation becomes dangerous," said Wayne Owens, president of the U.S.-based Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation.
"In the eyes of the Arab world, Israel has committed an enormous provocation." Diplomats said Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, who alienated some Arabs by making a secret peace deal with Israel in 1993, is using the charged atmosphere in the Arab world to rally support for his demands in peace negotiations with Israel.
Arab leaders discouraged Arafat from declaring a state in September as he had vowed to do, but Israel's behavior toward the Palestinians has won him fresh sympathy.
Arab diplomats said they sensed an unprecedented willingness on the part of their governments to make sacrifices for the Palestinians, though oil-rich states have argued against using oil as a weapon against Israel and its ally, the United States.
"The day will not be far off when the independent Palestinian state will rise ... with Bait-ul-Moqaddas as her capital," Mubarak said in an opening speech to the summit.
Other Arab officials said the final communique would provide political and economic support for the Palestinians and call for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
Arab leaders last met in 1996 after former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to discuss the future of Arab East Bait-ul-Moqaddas, vowing to keep it as part of Israel's "eternal, undivided capital".
Iraq was not invited to the 1996 meeting because of fears that its rift with Persian Gulf Arab states over Baghdad's 1990 invasion of Kuwait would lead to an open display of disunity.
Egyptian officials said participants at the Cairo summit, including Izzat Ibrahim, vice chairman of Iraq's Revolutionary Command Council, and Kuwait's First Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, had promised not to discuss anything except the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Bait-ul-Moqaddas.
"Never underestimate the power of Bait-ul-Moqaddas," the Arab League official said.
Arab leaders at the meeting called for action against Israel Saturday as three more Palestinians died in the Gaza Strip in clashes with Israeli troops.
But the proposals varied, from a jihad or holy war urged by Iraq, to a break in all relations with Israel and a revival of a boycott of firms dealing with the Zionist state, advocated by Syria.
Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz also called for Arab leaders to set up solidarity funds for the Palestinians worth a total of one billion dollars.
He proposed setting aside $200 million for families of Palestinians killed in the clashes and the other 800 million for development projects in the Palestinian territories.
Saudi Arabia would contribute $250 million to the two funds, and King Fahd would "look after 1,000 families of martyrs of the Intifada", he said, referring to those killed in clashes with Israeli forces in the three-week-old Palestinian uprising.
Delegates said a final resolution was likely to announce limited "measures" against Israel while reaffirming peace as "a strategic choice." Qatar, Oman, Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania would have to close or freeze activities at the trade or interests missions they have exchanged with Israel, they said.
Egypt and Jordan, which signed peace treaties with Israel in 1979 and 1994, and the Palestinian Authority, which signed the Oslo Accords in 1993, would not have to abide by the measure.
But a senior Arab official said the final draft document might be modified after Israel's move announced Friday by Prime Minister Ehud Barak to suspend the seven-year peace process unless violence ceased by the end of the summit on Sunday.
The draft document also calls for some Israelis, including Ariel Sharon, to be prosecuted in an international court for "war crimes" and condemns Israel for "plunging the region back into a spiral of violence." It was a visit by opposition leader Sharon to the compound of Al-Aqsa Mosque in disputed East Al-Qods, which Jews also venerate as the site of their destroyed temple, that sparked the current wave of violence.
In Paris, as Arab leaders began their summit in Cairo to show solidarity with the Palestinians, the European Union on Saturday appealed to Israelis and Palestinians to end recent violent clashes and redouble efforts to reach a peace agreement.
"The European Union again appeals for an immediate halt to violence in the Palestinian territories," the 15-nation bloc said in a statement.
The EU said continuing the clashes which have led to 118 deaths in three weeks, almost all of them Palestinians would "lead nowhere".
A day after the United Nations General Assembly condemned Israel's "excessive use of force" against Palestinian civilians, the EU insisted "the use of armed forces should be controlled".
The EU and its partners in Asia on Friday urged both sides in the conflict to make an effort to calm the troubles and resume peace negotiations.