UNITED NATIONS: President Mahmoud Abbas sought a new super observer UN status for Palestinians yesterday as he condemned Israel’s “catastrophic” settlements in the occupied territories.
One year after making an emotional bid for full membership of the United Nations, Abbas returned to the UN General Assembly to warn that Israel’s tactics were a sign that it “rejects the two-state solution.”
Abbas called on the United Nations Security Council to pass a binding resolution setting out a path to end the two-year deadlock in talks between the Middle East rivals. The Palestinians’ bid for full membership of the United Nations has been blocked at the Security Council by the veto-wielding United States. This week, Abbas came back to New York with more modest ambitions.
Abbas’ speech pointed a clear finger of blame at Israel for a stalemate in negotiations, and accused the Jewish state of “ethnic cleansing” against the Palestinians. The Hamas government in Gaza yesterday denounced an “emotional” address president Mahmoud Abbas to the UN, saying it showed the 1993 Oslo peace accords had failed.
“It is clear that the speech announced the failure of the political programme since Oslo,” Taher Al Nunu, a spokesman for the Hamas government said, calling Abbas’s address “emotional.”
“The speech contained contradictions. He talked about the failure of the peace process and Oslo, and then called for the return to negotiations,” Nunu said.
“We repeat that it would be better for Abu Mazen to proclaim the death of the negotiations and of compromise,” he added. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri criticised that request saying it was a “unilateral step not agreed upon by the Palestinians.” “There are a lot of questions and observations about the move,” he said.Agencies
