Israel denounces Abbas’s claims in UN speech, saying end game is elimination of Jewish state
Jerusalem's foreign ministry also pointed out that a pin in the shape of a key attached to the lapel of the Palestinian Authority leader stands for the Palestinian “right of return," code for the end of Israel.
Israel condemned the “dangerous duplicity” of Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, who addressed the 80th session of the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday, in which he accused Israel of a litany of crimes, including occupation, using starvation in Gaza as a weapon of war and aggression against holy sites in the Middle East.
“In his speech addressing the U.N. General Assembly, he wore a ‘key’ pin—an unmistakable symbol of his goal of erasing Israel,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry posted on X, which Gideon Sa’ar, Israel’s foreign minister, then reposted.
The key is a prominent symbol for Palestinians, representing the so-called “right of return” to homes and lands they abandoned during the War of Independence that began in May 1948, after the modern-day State of Israel was established, only to be attacked by five Arab states attempting to eradicate it at its birth.
“While Hamas called the Oct. 7 massacre the ‘Al-Aqsa Flood,’ Abbas wants his own flood under the guise of two states—millions of descendants of Arabs who left Israel in 1948 pushed into Israel to erase the only Jewish state,” the foreign ministry said.
Israeli leaders from across the political spectrum agree that the flooding into Israel of millions of Arabs would spell the end of Jewish demographics, and thus, the Jewish state.
“History matters: In 1948, the Arab world declared war on Israel, after which many more Jews were expelled from Arab countries to Israel than Arabs who left Israel,” it continued.
“It is long overdue for Arab states to grant citizenship to the descendants of those who left in 1948. Abbas’s ‘key’ is the old PLO plan: two states for one Palestinian people and the destruction of the Jewish state. This will not happen,” the statement concluded.
Abbas addressed the U.N. by video link as the Trump administration denied new visas and revoked old ones from individuals associated with the P.A. and the PLO ahead of the annual assembly.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) posted on X that “the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization pay terrorists to kill civilians, including Americans, in Israel. The terrorists who run this ‘pay-for-slay’ scheme have no business setting foot in the United States.”
Lashes out against Israeli construction, E1 plan
Abbas made no mention of the P.A.’s “Martyr’s Fund.” Instead, he claimed that the authority “rejected violence and terrorism” and “adopted a culture of peace.” He also claimed that the P.A. opposes antisemitism, “which is something that we reject based on our values and principles.”
He made this comment despite his own long history of making antisemitic remarks, including in September 2023, when he claimed that Adolf Hitler ordered the extermination of Jews due to their role as moneylenders.
The P.A. head also accused Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity; of “genocide, destruction, starvation and displacement,” of some 2 million Palestinians in Gaza; and of attacks on Islamic and Christian religious sites in Jerusalem, Hebron and the Gaza Strip.
Abbas also censured Israel’s recent attack on Hamas leaders gathered at a compound in Qatar.
He denounced the Israeli government for implementing “illegal settlement expansion,” including the recent construction plan in E1, which he said would “isolate occupied Jerusalem from its surroundings, and would undermine the option of the two-state solution.”
Abbas claimed the eastern half of Jerusalem as “the capital of the state of Palestine.” He referred to Jerusalem as “the jewel of our heart and our eternal capital.”
Regarding Hamas, he said he condemned the massacre of 1,200 people, mostly civilians, on Oct. 7, 2023. But he also called for the Gaza Strip to be handed over to the P.A.
In his speech, the P.A. chief declared that the authority is “ready to bear full responsibility for governance and security there. Hamas will not have a role to play in governance. Hamas and other factions will have to hand over their weapons to the Palestinian National Authority as part of a process to build the institutions of one state,” he said.
While calling for the United Nations to do more for the Palestinians—noting that none of the more than 1,000 resolutions passed by the world body on behalf of “Palestine” have been implemented—he thanked France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Belgium, Portugal, Luxembourg, Denmark and other countries for their declarations of recognizing a “State of Palestine.”
He also thanked the 149 states that previously recognized a “State of Palestine.”
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