Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called Wednesday or the creation of a "special regime" for the protection of his people, as a wave of deadly Israeli-Palestinian violence showed no sign of diminishing. Abbas called on the United Nations, "more urgently than any time before, to set up a special regime for international protection for the Palestinian people, immediately and urgently." Accusing Israel of acting "as a state above international law" by carrying out "extrajudicial killings," he urged the Security Council and U.N. member countries to fulfil their responsibilities. "We need protection, and we look to you," the Palestinian president told a special meeting of the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council on the escalating crisis. "Protect us. Protect us. We need you," he said, warning that allowing the current situation to continue would "kill the last shred of hope for the two-state-solution-based peace." Warning that "it is no longer useful to waste time in negotiations," Abbas said "what is required is ending the occupation," which he insisted was "the root" of the problems plaguing both Palestinians and Israelis. He called on the international community to help "stop these daily crimes committed against my people" and "protect Israel from itself." Abbas also criticized Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for remarks suggesting that a 1930s Palestinian religious leader persuaded Nazi Germany to carry out a policy that exterminated 6 million Jews. Abbas deplored Netanyahu's comments a week earlier referring to Nazi sympathizer Haj Amin al-Husseini, a former grand mufti of Jerusalem. He called the allegations "false, untrue, and baseless" and said they manipulate the sentiments of Jews about "the most horrendous crime known in modern history committed by the Nazis." At the meeting in Geneva, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein also expressed alarm about the situation in Israel and occupied Palestinian territory, warning that the deadly violence there was "dangerous in the extreme" and could lead to a "catastrophe."
