Abbas is addressing the General Assembly after having just submitted his application for terror statehood. Abbas received a standing ovation as he approached the podium at that collective negation of humanity.
Abbas is describing the establishment of the state of Israel as the Nakba, يوم النكبة Yawm an-Nakbah, the "catastrophe." Nothing changes, not for 64 years. Nothing -- the destruction of Israel is the end goal.
Eighteen years ago this week, on September 13, 1993, the PLO signed the Declaration of Principles with Israel on the White House lawn.
There, the terror group committed itself to a peace process in which all disputes between Israel and the PLO - including the issue of Palestinian statehood - would be settled in the framework of bilateral negotiations.The PA was established on the basis of this accord. The territory, money, arms and international legitimacy it has been given was due entirely to the PLO pledge to resolve the Palestinian conflict with Israel through bilateral negotiations.By abandoning negotiations with Israel two years ago, and opting instead to achieve its nationalist aims outside the framework of a peace treaty with Israel, the Palestinians are destroying the diplomatic edifice on which the entire concept of a peace process is based. They are announcing that they have no intention of living at peace with Israel. Rather they intend to move ahead at Israel's expense.In truth, there is little new in the Palestinians' behavior. They have been using the UN to weaken Israel diplomatically since the early 1970s. Moreover, even if their bid does provide them with upgraded diplomatic status, it won't change the reality on the ground, nor are the Palestinians particularly interested in changing the situation on the ground. (Caroline Glick here)
We give 600 million dollars a year to these genocidal terrorists. We should cut it off today. They broke their pledge.
Palestinians make formal statehood bid at U.N. (CBS/AP)
UNITED NATIONS - Defying U.S. and Israeli opposition, Palestinians asked the United Nations on Friday to accept them as a member state, sidestepping nearly two decades of troubled negotiations in the hope this dramatic move on the world stage would reenergize their quest for an independent homeland.
In the West Bank, the core of that hoped-for state, a Palestinian man was shot dead in a clash with Israeli soldiers and settlers as antagonisms flared over the statehood bid.
Earlier in the week, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rebuffed an intense, U.S.-led effort to sway him from the statehood bid, saying he would submit the application to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon as planned.
We're going without any hesitation and continuing despite all the pressures," Abbas told members of the Palestinian diaspora at a hotel in New York on Thursday night. "We seek to achieve our right and we want our independent state." Shortly before noon on Friday, Ban's spokesman tweeted, "President Abbas just handed the Palestinian application to the Secretary-General UNSG."In his letter to Ban accompanying the application, Abbas asked the U.N. chief to immediately forward the request for full U.N. membership to the Security Council and the General Assembly, according to a top aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity before the documents were submitted. The General Assembly will likely be asked to approve a more modest status upgrade if the bid in the council founders as expected.
To be sure, Abbas' appeal to the U.N. to recognize Palestinian independence in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip would not deliver any immediate changes on the ground: Israel would remain an occupying force in those first two territories and continue to severely restrict access to Gaza, ruled by Palestinian Hamas militants.
Beyond that, Security Council action on the membership request could take weeks or months, effectively buying time for both sides to consider revamped proposals for peace talks, notes CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pam Falk.
Both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abbas are scheduled to speak to the UN General Assembly after the statehood bid has been submitted.
The logo of “the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations” – on their website and on top of their official statements at the U.N. – shows the Palestinian Authority’s claim to a Palestine that stretches throughout the entire historical entity of the former Palestine mandate.
In other words, all of Israel. More at the Weekly Standard:
Absent from the logo is any hint that Palestine consists of anything other than Arab territory. No nod is given even to the U.N.’s 1948 decision to divide the region into Jewish and Arab sectors. As for the shape of Israel by the time it was forced into waging the defensive Six Day war in 1967: irrelevant. The logo illustrates that the Palestinian bid before the U.N. for support of a unilateral declaration of statehood is disingenuous and dangerous.There is not too much left to the imagination here: Israel is “wiped off the map.”
