71. Palestinian Pres. Mahmud Abbas, Address to the UN General Assembly on the Occasion of Palestine's Application for UN Membership, New York, 23 September 2011 (excerpts)
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- President Abbas's speech, which ended with the announcement that an application for membership in the United Nations had just been filed, consisted primarily of a comprehensive overview of the Palestinian position, past efforts, and current situation and included a clear statement of purpose, goals, and conditions for renewed negotiations. Addressing relentless settlement expansion and Israel's refusal to commit to terms of reference as called for by international law and UN resolutions, he stated frankly that it was "no longer possible to redress the issue of blockage of the horizon of the peace talks with the same means . . . that have been repeatedly tried and proven unsuccessful" and declared that negotiations were futile "without clear parameters and in the absence of credibility and a specific timetable," and in the continuing presence of an entrenched occupation that "continues to change the demography of our country in order to . . . alter the borders." Abbas was greeted enthusiastically upon his return home on 25 September by thousands of Palestinians who praised his actions at the UN General Assembly session as an assertion of Palestinian rights and principles, even while being skeptical that they would result in substantive change. The speech, delivered in Arabic, was taken from the PLO's Negotiations Affairs Department.
- Political Geography:
- Palestine and United Nations