UNITED NATIONS, May 4: With tensions in the Middle East at a new high, even normally unruffled diplomats worry about who they are seen with and where they sit.

On Friday, Tunisia’s UN ambassador, Noureddine Mejdoub, refused to sit next to Israeli Ambassador Yehuda Lancry at the horseshoe-shaped Security Council table during a public Middle East debate.

Instead, he waited for a UN aide to switch the “Tunisia” nameplate to the chair next to Palestinian UN observer Nasser al-Kidwa, seated at the other end of the table from Lancry.

The Canadian and Chilean ambassadors then took their turns in the chair next to Lancry.

Mejdoub said later that UN aides had made a “mistake” as he usually sat next to al-Kidwa, particularly since Israel’s offensive last month into the West Bank.

“It has been since these last problems a tradition,” the Tunisian diplomat said.

The seating plan in the Security Council bothers Japan also. Its UN ambassador, Yukio Satoh, told the council last month to devise a less political arrangement.

“I found it very embarrassing to choose between the two seats, one on the side of Israel, the other on the side of Palestine,” Satoh said as he took his place next to Israel.

“I want to tell both my Palestine and Israeli colleagues that my sitting here today on this side does not mean anything more than sheer convenience. I cannot divide myself. I hope the Security Council finds a way for us to sit in a more politically comfortable way in the future,” he said.

Some diplomats said the only way to solve it was to seat Lancry and al-Kidwa side by side. “Then there will be peace,” one envoy said.—Reuters