“Palestine is being reborn. This is my message. May all the people of the world stand with the people of Palestine as it marches steadfastly to its appointment with history toward its freedom and independence.” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addressing the UN General Assembly today. (Full text of speech – PDF)
“susan rice, israeli delegation sit stone silent as the Gen Assembly offer rousing applause for Abbas” — Colum Lynch
The Palestinian bid for UN membership will be “quickly” handled and sent to the UN Security Council, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said.
Speaking after Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas met UN leader Ban Ki-moon, Nesirky said: “The appropriate procedural reviews will be quickly undertaken in the secretariat and afterwards will be transmitted to the president of the Security Council and the president of the General Assembly”. (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera reports:
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has handed over a historic request to UN chief Ban Ki-moon asking the United Nations to admit the state of Palestine as a full member.
The Palestinian leader won huge applause and a standing ovation on Friday from some of the assembly as he entered the hall before beginning his speech.
Abbas said he was ready to return to the negotiations, saying he did not want to isolate or delegitimize Israel.
“Here I declare that the Palestine Liberation Organization is ready to return immediately to the negotiating table on the basis of the adopted terms of reference … and a complete cessation of settlement activities,” he told the UN General Assembly.
But he maintained previous peace talks were “smashed against the rocks of the positions of the Israeli government, which quickly dashed the hopes raised by the launch of negotiations last September”.
Palestinians across the West Bank celebrated the formal submission of their bid to become a United Nations member state, despite opposition from the United States and Israel.
In city centres, giant television screens were set up so residents could watch Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, deliver a historic address to the 193 member states of the UN General Assembly.
In case anyone was in any doubt about Obama’s determination to scuttle Palestine:
‘The Palestinian leader privately retreated from his pledge to seek an immediate security council vote in part because he is no longer sure of winning the necessary majority, which would have given the Palestinians a moral victory even if the US used its veto. Palestinian sources say they believe Washington has bullied several security council members into withdrawing their support for the Palestinian move, including Portugal, by threatening to withhold support for its stricken economy, and Bosnia, over its opposition to Kosovo being admitted to the UN. Palestinian officials also believe Nigeria is no longer certain to vote in their favour. There are also questions about the position of Gabon and Colombia.
One senior Palestinian official described the Americans as “playing a really nasty game”.’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/23/abbas-call-palestinian-recognition-un
Abbas made the speech Zionists had wished they made at the General Assembly in 1947. Netanyahu sounded like a psychotic. First he calls all the delegates liars, quoting the Rebee who, I was personally told by his followers in Brooklyn, they believe was poisoned by another faction going after the wealth. Then he tries to tear down Ahmadinejad by sounding exactly like him.
Israel is running scared. The schmaltz about victimhood is not working anymore. Zionists expropriated the Holocaust as a bat with which to shame all Jews and “dumb goyim” in the Diaspora. But in fact, Bibi– WHO KNOWS BETTER– soiled himself and is now politically doomed. MSNBC and FOX NEWS only showed Netanyahu’s speech, not Abbas’s. This proves that– LEFT and RIGHT—when ads money is running low, the media will prostitute itself to those who are willing to pay. And a few Zionist billionaires have been willing to pay whatever it takes to propagandize America. It is admirable but reckless considering that Majority Leader Kantor is holding back funding from FIMA so it cannot help the victims of the hurricane but found $4 billions to give to Israel is yet another flame that could dangerously arouse an American Krystallnaht in these times of American economic despair. Obama will pay with his soul for re-election because he’s a “yes boss” man vis-à-vis campaign contributors. Suskind’s excellent (as usual) book documents it.
Indeed, American Jews are true Americans, though in a sinking America. Israel is NOT their alternative, just a nasty burdensome tumor. For now they choose silence but Israel doesn’t have much time to shape up before they will recall what a fraud Israel made of the Holocaust horrors; already some scholars are beginning to doubt the authenticity of the main spokesman for the Holocaust as a Zionist club. Zionists are playing with fire and that’s criminal negligence towards the Diaspora. The issue for Zionists is not security but expansion. For that they will risk the safety of Diaspora Jews because they already consider them dirt for not moving to Israel. We’re in very dangerous waters indeed. God help us all.