President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) has defied all pressure, and initiated the spring of Palestinian statehood from the rostrum of the General Assembly of the United Nations. In the speech he delivered there, Abbas confirmed that he had submitted to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, an application for the admission of Palestine on the basis of the 1967 borders, as a full member of the United Nations. Soon thereafter, the United States rushed to call on Abbas to return to ‘direct negotiations' with Israel, while Israel expressed its ‘regret' over Abbas's application, and diplomats said that the Quartet has reached an agreement over a statement that it hopes would see Israel and the Palestinians return to the peace talks. For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called in his speech to the General Assembly for the recognition of the Jewish state, stating that peace cannot be achieved through UN resolutions, and reiterating that Israel wants peace. In his speech before the General Assembly, Abbas said " I submitted, in my capacity as the President of the State of Palestine and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, to H.E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, an application for the admission of Palestine on the basis of the 4 June 1967 borders, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital, as a full member of the United Nations. I call upon Mr. Secretary-General to expedite transmittal of our request to the Security Council, and I call upon the distinguished members of the Security Council to vote in favor of our full membership. I also call upon the States that did not recognized the State of Palestine as yet to do so.” The delegation stood applauding with enthusiasm as the Palestinian President waved a copy of the letter, in what was a rare and historic moment at the United Nations, and said, "The support of the countries of the world for our endeavor is a victory for truth, freedom, justice, law and international legitimacy, and it provides tremendous support for the peace option and enhances the chances of success of the negotiations." He then added: Your support for the establishment of the State of Palestine and for its admission to the United Nations as a full member is the greatest contribution to peacemaking in the Holy Land, and I hope it would not have to wait for long. Abbas said that he came to the General Assembly "from the Holy Land, the land of Palestine, the land of divine messages, ascension of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the birthplace of Jesus Christ (peace be upon him), to speak on behalf of the Palestinian people in the homeland and in the Diaspora, to say, after 63 years of suffering of the ongoing Nakba: Enough. It is time for the Palestinian people to gain their freedom and independence. The time has come to end the suffering and the plight of millions of Palestine refugees in the homeland and the Diaspora, to end their displacement and to realize their rights, some of them forced to take refuge more than once in different places of the world.” He then declared, "At a time when the Arab peoples affirm their quest for democracy - the Arab Spring - the time is now for the Palestinian Spring, the time for independence.” He also said, “My people desire to exercise their right to enjoy a normal life like the rest of humanity. They believe what the great poet Mahmoud Darwish said: Standing here, staying here, permanent here, eternal here, and we have one goal, one, one: to be." Abbas then praised " the positions of all States that have supported our struggle and our rights and recognized the State of Palestine following the Declaration of Independence in 1988, as well as the countries that have recently recognized the State of Palestine and those that have upgraded the level of Palestine's representation in their capitals. I also salute the Secretary-General, who said a few days ago that the Palestinian State should have been established years ago." Abbas then confirmed the “readiness of the Palestinian people and their institutions for the immediate independence of the State of Palestine.” He said, “It is no longer possible to redress the issue of the blockage of the horizon of the peace talks with the same means and methods that have been repeatedly tried and proven unsuccessful over the past years. The crisis is far too deep to be neglected, and what is more dangerous are attempts to simply circumvent it or postpone its explosion.” He then continued by saying, “It is neither possible, nor practical, nor acceptable to return to conducting business as usual, as if everything is fine. It is futile to go into negotiations without clear parameters and in the absence of credibility and a specific timetable. Negotiations will be meaningless as long as the occupation army on the ground continues to entrench its occupation, instead of rolling it back, and continues to change the demography of our country in order to create a new basis on which to alter the borders.” The Palestinian President proclaimed that “It is a moment of truth and my people are waiting to hear the answer of the world. Will it allow Israel to continue its occupation, the only occupation in the world? Will it allow Israel to remain a State above the law and accountability? Will it allow Israel to continue rejecting the resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations and the International Court of Justice and the positions of the overwhelming majority of countries in the world?” He then said: The essence of the crisis in our region is simple and clear. It is that: Either there are some who believe that our people is redundant in the Middle East, or that in truth there is an absent state that must be quickly established. Abbas then explained the objectives of the negotiations, to which he reiterated his commitment, and said, “The goal of the Palestinian people is the realization of their inalienable national rights in their independent State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on all the land of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, which Israel occupied in the June 1967 war, in conformity with the resolutions of international legitimacy and with the achievement of a just and agreed upon solution to the Palestine refugee issue in accordance with resolution 194, as stipulated in the Arab Peace Initiative”. Abbas then stressed that “The PLO and the Palestinian people adhere to the renouncement of violence and rejection and condemning of terrorism in all its forms, especially State terrorism, and adhere to all agreements signed between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel.” He also declared his adherence “to the option of negotiating a lasting solution to the conflict in accordance with resolutions of international legitimacy. 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 based on international legitimacy and a complete cessation of settlement activities.” Abbas then stressed that “Our people will continue their popular peaceful resistance to the Israeli occupation and its settlement and apartheid policies and its construction of the racist annexation Wall, and they receive support for their resistance, which is consistent with international humanitarian law and international conventions and has the support of peace activists from Israel and around the world, reflecting an impressive, inspiring and courageous example of the strength of this defenseless people, armed only with their dreams, courage, hope and slogans in the face of bullets, tanks, tear gas and bulldozers.” Abbas also said, “When we bring our plight and our case to this international podium, it is a confirmation of our reliance on the political and diplomatic option and is a confirmation that we do not undertake unilateral steps. Our efforts are not aimed at isolating Israel or de-legitimizing it; rather we want to gain legitimacy for the cause of the people of Palestine. We only aim to de-legitimize the settlement activities and the occupation and apartheid and the logic of ruthless force, and we believe that all the countries of the world stand with us in this regard.” He then declared that “We extend our hands to the Israeli government and the Israeli people for peace-making.” Abbas then addressed the issue of Palestinian reconciliation and said, “When division struck the unity of our homeland, people and institutions, we were determined to adopt dialogue for restoration of our unity […] and we hope that its implementation will be accelerated in the coming weeks.” Abbas then said, "Because we believe in peace […] we decided to adopt the path of relative justice. Thus, we agreed to establish the State of Palestine on only 22% of the territory of historical Palestine - on all the Palestinian Territory occupied by Israel in 1967. We, by taking that historic step, which was welcomed by the States of the world, made a major concession in order to achieve a historic compromise that would allow peace to be made in the land of peace.” He also stated, “We persevered and dealt positively and responsibly with all efforts aimed at the achievement of a lasting peace agreement. Yet, as we said earlier, every initiative and every conference and every new round of negotiations and every movement was shattered on the rock of the Israeli settlement expansion project." Abbas submitted the letter of application asking full Palestinian membership of the UN. The letter was less than one hundred words and comprised two parts, according to diplomatic sources, which explained that the first part declared commitment to the principles and Charter of the United Nations, while the second part comprised the application for membership and a declaration whose gist included the following: “I, Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the State of Palestine, declare on behalf of the State of Palestine, that I accept and respect all the principles and commitments mentioned in the Charter of the United Nations, human rights, and international law". As regards the part concerned with the application for membership, its gist – not text- was as follows: “In my capacity as the President of the State of Palestine, I hereby submit the application for full membership for the State of Palestine in the United Nations". Sources in the General Secretariat quoted the Secretary General as saying, upon his receipt of the membership application from Abbas: “The letter will be subject to technical scrutiny, before being transmitted to the President of the Security Council”. It is not known when the Secretary General would refer the letter to the President of the Council, but the sources in the General Secretariat stated that “this matter should not take long”. After Abbas delivered his speech in the General Assembly, he spoke before the Organization of Islamic Conference, before he left New York yesterday evening. For his part, Netanyahu said in his speech to the General Assembly, which he delivered straight after Abbas's, that it is time for the Palestinians to recognize that “Israel is a Jewish state”. He reiterated that his hands are extended to the Palestinian people, and added a short time after President Abbas had submitted the Palestinian membership application, “The truth is that Israel wants peace. The truth is that I want peace”. However, he warned that peace cannot be achieved through UN resolutions, and told Abbas: “Let's meet here today in the United Nations”. And in the course of the reactions to the Palestinian UN membership application, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said, "When the speeches end today, we must all recognize that the only way to create a state is through direct negotiations. No shortcuts”. In Israel, the spokesperson for the Prime Minister Gidi Shmerling said, “We regret the step”, and added, “We believe that the only path to true peace is through negotiations and not unilateral steps.” On the other hand, the Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that Abbas's speech "was the worst example of incitement and vitriol”, and said he has never heard such a tone before from the President of the Palestinian Authority. In a statement he gave to Israel's Channel Ten, Lieberman said that Abbas made false and cruel accusations against Israel, including ones of making excavations under Islamic holy places, and that Abbas considered Palestinian killers political prisoners, and practically followed in the footsteps of (former President) Yasser Arafat, whose name he mentioned three times in the course of his speech. Lieberman also said that Abbas cited the Arab nations and European countries, but deliberately omitted the United States, adding that his talk about negotiations was only lip service, and that the gist of his speech is against negotiations, as he practically pledged to continue to harm Israel. For its part, Hamas said that Abbas's speech was emotional and that it has managed to relay the suffering of the Palestinian people. However, Hamas said the speech had failed to identify the means of resistance when it linked Abbas's move at the UN to negotiations with the occupation, making it practically a step without substance.
