Abbas at the United Nations: The Palestinian people won’t be displaced or disappear

JTA – Palestinians are in danger of being pushed off their land as Israel closes off the option of a two-state solution, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas told the United Nations (UN) General Assembly on Thursday in a virtual address. 

The danger is no longer about preventing a Palestinian state, he said, stressing, “It has now come to threaten the very life and existence of the Palestinian people on their homeland.” 

His words were heavy, but he spoke in measured tones as he sat behind a desk in Ramallah and read from a prepared text after being denied a visa to attend the New York gathering. 

Abbas pledged resilience. “The Palestinian people will remain on their land. They will not accept displacement, and they will not disappear,” said Abbas, who is also known by his nickname, Abu Mazen. 

The 91-year-old leader delivered his 20th address to the UN General Assembly, where he found a supportive audience in a body that has passed dozens of resolutions condemning Israel and supporting Palestinian statehood. 

The Trump administration for the second year barred Abbas from entering the United States for the event. The ban is to protest the PA’s pursuit of legal action against Israel in global institutions such as the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. 

Washington also objects to the PA policy of providing monetary stipends to Palestinians jailed by Israel for acts of terror, and to their family members. 

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, posted on X after the speech, “Abu Mazen – as long as you’re funding terror, you’ll keep sending videos.” 

During the speech, Israel’s Foreign Ministry posted on X a photoshopped picture of Abbas sitting surrounded by wads of cash, claiming that the stipends were higher for those involved in serious attacks of violence. 

“The more blood spilled – the greater the reward. Mahmoud Abbas rewards and encourages terror,” it stated. In a separate post on X it added, “You cannot incite hate and terror among children and then pretend you want peace.” 

Abbas said peace would come about through the creation of a Palestinian state, and that he remained committed to a two-state outcome. 

He also nodded to some Trump administration demands, including keeping a Palestinian state demilitarised and embracing the administration’s 20-point peace plan to resolve the war in Gaza – which Netanyahu has expressed reservations about. 

It has been three years since the brutal Hamas-led attack against southern Israel in which 1 200 people were killed and another 251 taken hostage. The raid sparked a prolonged Gaza war and spurred many Israelis to turn away from Palestinian statehood. 

Netanyahu has disavowed Palestinian statehood, as has his government. 

Abbas echoed many of the other world leaders at the General Assembly in condemning Israel for its military actions in Gaza over the last three years in which 70 000 Palestinian militants and civilians were killed, calling it a “war of genocide”. The International Court of Justice is examining whether its actions constitute a genocide. 

The Palestinian leader said settlement expansion made a Palestinian state unviable. He also spoke out against Jewish extremist violence and terror against Palestinians in the West Bank, including the burning of homes and the shooting of Palestinian civilians. He called on the international community not to remain silent and to stop providing Israel with weapons. 

These actions and policies, he said, were not incidental but part of a “malicious” plan by Israel to encourage “ethnic cleansing”. 

Abbas said he was making an urgent appeal to the international community not to allow another Nakba, the Arabic word meaning “catastrophe” that refers to the displacement of 750 000 Palestinians from their homes in Israel’s War of Independence. 

“Do not allow terrorist gangs protected by the Israeli occupying forces to burn Palestinian homes while their inhabitants are sleeping inside. Do not allow our children to live in fear and under threat,” he said. 

In another response, Israel’s Foreign Ministry posted a photo from the site of a Palestinian ramming attack in the West Bank on Tuesday. The vehicle seriously injured the son of Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter. 

The Foreign Ministry wrote that while Abbas defamed Israel at the UN, “Israelis face a sustained wave of Palestinian terror attacks. Palestinian terrorists are shooting, stabbing, and targeting Israelis while Abbas and the PA continue to incite and glorify violence.”