UNGA 2015: Comment on Mahmoud Abbas' Delivery

President Abbas presented himself before the UNGA to acknowledge that Fatah/PLO does not have the capability to form a viable State and to threaten the State of Israel. 

WARNING: this post contains graphic images as rebuttal of Mr Abbas' claims that he spreads peace. 

Mahmoud Abbas said that Muslims are prevented from entering the Temple Mount and freely exercise their religious rights – images speak louder than words: 

The Threat

“I call on the Israeli Government, before it is too late, to cease its use of brutal force (..) for such actions will convert the conflict from a political to religious one, creating an explosion in Jerusalem and in the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory."

This passage is practically a letter of intentions; so much so, that a little over 24 hours after Pres. Abbas delivered his speech, Fatah/PLO (his Party) brutally murdered a Jewish couple in front of their children, in Itamar (Samaria), and proudly claimed the attack. 72 hours later his people carried out another terrorist attack by killing more Jewish civilians and a Rabbi.
Interesting detail: the Fatah faction that carried out the attacks was the Martyr Abdul-Qader al Husseini Brigades, whose spokesman recently told a Lebanese paper that their funding, training and weapons came straight from Iran “There's always contact between the Palestinian resistance and Hezbollah and Iran (..) This is no longer a secret”.

UNGA Resolutions

"(..) so that their wish and right to their own State, like all other peoples of the Earth, can be achieved, along with a just solution for the Palestine refugee issue in accordance with General Assembly resolution 194 and the Arab Peace Initiative."

General Assembly resolutions are not binding. But for the sake of it, let's briefly discuss Resolution 194:

"Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes" meaning that it doesn't automatically assume that all refugees wish to return (and data shows they don't).

"live in peace with neighbours" meaning it's not an unconditional right to return, and given the Arab proclivity to do political Taqiyya, Israel does well to be cautious.

"should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date" meaning that it's not a guarantee; it may happen (conditioned by the reality on the ground) at any time in an unspecified future.

"(..) should be made good by Governments and authorities responsible" it doesn't specifically say Israel, thus it implies that the situation must be resolved by those responsible for the crisis in the first place (Arab States).

So this non-binding resolution basically says that the Arab people who were advised by Jordan to leave Israel during the 1948 War of Independence do not have unconditional right to return. President Abbas should stop invoking resolutions that do not help his case.

Political Deception

"We do not respond to the Israeli occupation's hatred and brutality with the same. Instead, we are working on spreading the culture of peace and coexistence between our people and in our region (..)"

President Abbas seeks co-existence “between our people [Arabs] and in our region [Muslim region]”, not co-existence with “our neighbours (Israelis), side-by-side (Two-State Solution).
Here's what Mahmoud Abbas, and his party, understand by working to spread the culture of peace:

“We will not allow the Jews to Pollute our Holy sites” (Pres. Abbas on 11/11/2014)

Jerusalem Synagogue: Palestinian terror - November 2014

“We have frankly said, and always will say: If there is an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, we won’t agree to the presence of one Israeli [Jew] in it,” (Pres. Abbas)

Manipulating the Truth

"You are all aware that Israel undermined the efforts made by the administration of President Barack Obama in past years, most recently the efforts of Secretary of State John Kerry aimed at reaching a peace agreement through negotiations."

Actually, Saeb Erekat undermined the Obama Administration's efforts to reach peace (read this document where America was informed about the Palestinian “plans to reject American proposals and pursue unilateral actions (..)”) but again, Mahmoud Abbas think people don't know this – despite the fact that his cause has been losing media coverage and international interest. 

"(..) a peaceful solution in accordance with the two-State solution based on the pre-1967 borders"

The pre-1967 borders belonged to Egypt and Jordan. Notwithstanding, thanks to Ariel Sharon, Gaza is already under Palestinian control and Resolution 242 (calling Israel to withdraw from conquered territories, not all the territories) doesn't put the Jewish State under any obligation to hand over Samaria & Judea to begin with. So, why doesn't President Abbas acknowledge that Palestine already has a physical State (in Gaza Strip) and end this never-ending story? The world is beginning to suffer from Palestine-fatigue. 

Rejecting Negotiations

"It is no longer useful to waste time in negotiations for the sake of negotiations; what is required is to mobilize international efforts to oversee an end to the occupation in line with the resolutions of

international legitimacy"

Typical Fatah behaviour. What the PLO doesn't seem to understand is that the binding resolutions invoked by the Palestinian Camp have already been fulfilled by Israel. That's why the world hasn't done more to push the State of Israel over the edge: the law prevents them from doing so. Nevertheless, it has been politically convenient to express support for the “Palestinian Cause” but as Europe, and others, begin to realise the connection between this issue and Global Jihad (plus the inconvenience of openly linking Iran to Fatah and Hamas due to the JCPA); President Abbas and his people are slowly being ignored – as proven by last week's meagre media headlines of the Palestinian President's delivery at the UNGA. 

Renouncing the Oslo Accords?

"We therefore declare that we cannot continue to be bound by these agreements and that Israel

must assume all of its responsibilities as an occupying Power, because the status quo cannot continue (..)"

President Obama disagrees. Notwithstanding, the Palestinian camp realised that it has breached the Accords and that it could be held liable for it; thus it decided to make a pre-emptive move. However, in real terms the PLO didn't renounce the Accords last week because you can't renounce something that no longer exists – they were rendered null and void the day the UN recognised the State of Palestine, back in 2012. 

So what does this mean? It means, that President Abbas' announcement may backlash if Israel plays the right legal cards. Furthermore, there is de facto State of Palestine administrated by Hamas: Palestinian citizens have a place to go, by the shore, and Israel doesn't necessarily have to be responsible for them. 

Final Evaluation: Mahmoud Abbas' delivery was more of the same: counter-productive. The only extraordinary thing about it is that his team didn't take into account the international conjuncture, thus the impact it had may not have been the intended one. The PLO lost yet another opportunity to do something positive and Hamas may end up benefiting from Abbas' lack of good judgement.

(Image 1 Dowloaded from gadebate.un.org)
(Image 2 taken from Google Images)