By Joe Lauria
UNITED NATIONS--Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
said his government would introduce a resolution here demanding an
immediate resumption of talks with a firm timetable toward a final
status accord with Israel on land and refugees.
"It is impossible, and I repeat--it is impossible--to return to
the cycle of negotiations that failed to deal with the substance of
the matter and the fundamental question," Mr. Abbas told the U.N.
General Assembly in his annual address.
He said there was no value in Israeli-Palestinian talks--such as
those sponsored by the U.S.--that weren't linked to a firm
timetable to end the conflict. "The time has come to end this
settlement occupation," Mr. Abbas said.
The U.S., Israel's closest ally on the U.N. Security Council,
would likely veto any resolution that sought to impose a
"unilateral" settlement, as U.S. officials have referred to similar
Palestinian initiatives in the past.
Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister, said on his
Facebook page that Mr. Abbas' remarks demonstrate that he can't be
a partner for a peace deal. Referring to the Palestinian unity
government between Mr. Abbas's Fatah faction and Hamas, Mr.
Lieberman said the Palestinian leader "deals in diplomatic terror
and spins false conspiracies about Israel."
Mr. Abbas's latest overture to the U.N. represents a new push by
the Palestinians to internationalize the peace process and ratchet
up pressure on Israel, said Grant Rumley, an analyst focusing on
the Palestinians at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies,
a Washington think tank.
"They are using language that threatens Israel and the U.S.
doesn't like it," Mr. Rumley said.
In his speech, Mr. Abbas blamed the breakdown of the latest
round of U.S.-led negotiations earlier this year on Israel, saying
that during the talks Israel continued "settlement construction,
land confiscations, home demolitions, killing and arrest campaigns,
and forced displacement in the West Bank."
At the same time, he said, "racist and armed gangs of settlers"
persisted with their "crimes against the Palestinian people." Mr.
Abbas also accused Israel of breaching an agreement with the U.S.
to release a group of Palestinian prisoners.
Instead, Israel proposes a future that is "at best isolated
ghettos" for Palestinians on "fragmented lands, without borders and
without sovereignty over its airspace, water and natural resources,
which will be under the subjugation of the racist settlers and army
of occupation," and at "worst will be a most abhorrent form of
apartheid," the Palestinian leader said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose office declined
to comment on Friday, will present his government's side of the
story in his address to the general assembly on Monday.
Mr. Abbas spent much of his half-hour address blasting Israel
for its conduct during what he called "the third war waged by the
racist occupying state in five years" against Gaza.
Israel said its military operation was intended to end the
firing of rockets from Gaza into civilian areas and to destroy
tunnels used for smuggling and transporting militants into
Israel.
Praising demonstrations around the world in support of
Palestinians during the conflict and the growing boycott and
divestment movement against Israel, Mr. Abbas said Israel had
"chosen to defy the entire world."
Mr. Abbas vowed that Palestinians would "hold steadfast to their
legitimate right" to defend themselves against "the Israeli war
machine."
He declared, "We will not forget and we will not forgive, and we
will not allow war criminals to escape punishment."
Mr. Abbas made no mention of the International Criminal Court,
which the Palestinians earned the legal right to join when the
General Assembly voted in 2012 to grant them nonmember, Observer
State status at the U.N.
Senior Palestinian officials said in interviews in Ramallah
during the Israeli bombardments in July that Mr. Abbas alone among
the senior leadership was opposed to joining the ICC. They said he
feared, as head of a unity government that includes Hamas, that he
would be personally targeted by the court for Palestinian rocket
attacks from Gaza aimed at populated Israeli areas. Mr. Abbas
hasn't publicly commented on that.
In a reaction to Mr. Abbas' speech Friday, Human Rights Watch
said the Palestinian leader should "stop using justice as a
bargaining chip and finally give the ICC a mandate in
Palestine."
Philippe Bolopion, U.N. director for the rights group, said
"decades of near-total impunity have only fueled the cycle of
abusive violence, making the trust needed for peace ever more
elusive."
Joshua Mitnick in Tel Aviv contributed to this article.
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