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including the concurring vote of the permanent members." The nine votes cast in the Security Council in favour of the admission of Israel had included the affirmative votes of only four of the permanent members of the Council, since the United Kingdom had abstained. Sir Terence Shone ( United Kingdom), however, argued that the abstention of the United Kingdom in the Security Council had been in accordance with the practice adopted in the Council by the five permanent members and reaffirmed that the abstention of a permanent member did not constitute a veto but on the contrary permitted the Council to take action without the affirmative vote of that member when a resolution was supported by seven or more votes. The majority of representatives agreed with this interpretation and several of them cited instances in which representatives of the Arab States, now declaring this practice to be invalid, had approved the procedure. The representative of Iraq did not press for a vote on the proposal since the Chairman of the Committee (General Romulo) and later the President of the Assembly (Dr Evatt) ruled that it was outside the competence of the Committee or the Assembly to question the regularity of the vote in the Security Council' or the validity of the decision taken. Lengthy discussions took place on the substance of the application for membership. The Arab States, in opposing Israel's admission, claimed that Israel was not a peace-loving State and that it had consistently and flagrantly violated the principles of the Charter and the provisions of the Assembly resolutions concerning Palestine. Article 4 of the Charter clearly stated that an applicant for membership must, to gain admission, be a peace-loving State able and willing to ■carry out the obligations contained in the Charter. In the Arab view Israel was not a State in the meaning established by international law since it had not established internal peace and security and had no boundaries ; nor was it peace-loving, since it had " dragged out the Arabs from their homes and massacred them." Furthermore Israel was clearly not willing to carry out the obligations contained in the Charter since it had flouted General Assembly decisions and violated Security Council cease-fire orders. The " Zionists " had not brought the assassins of Count Bernadotte to justice and had not carried out the resolutions of the Assembly concerning the Arab refugees and the internationalization of Jerusalem. For the Assembly to approve Israel's application at this session would only encourage Israel to persist in its refusal to implement the decisions of the Assembly on these last two questions. Accordingly the Lebanese delegate introduced a draft resolution proposing that the General Assembly defer action on the admission of Israel to its fourth regular session.