Palestinian leader lies to United Nations

Palestinian leader lies to United Nations

By Alan Stein

Published in the Waterbury Republican-American October 2, 2024

An expanded version is available on the Times of Israel blog as The Mendacity of Mahmoud Abbas in His UN Speech.

When a person or an organization points to Israel and proclaims "j'accuse," the accusation is almost invariably false but, almost as invariably, would be true if it was directed at the Palestinian Arabs. This has occurred with increasing frequency since the horrendous, barbaric terror attack perpetrated last Oct. 7, primarily by Hamas but with the assistance of other terror groups in Gaza and thousands of ordinary Gaza "civilians," with weapons, expertise and financing largely provided by Iran and Qatar.

A graphic example is provided each year when Mahmoud Abbas, in the 20th year of his four-year term as head of the Palestinian Authority, addresses the United Nations General Assembly as "His Excellency, Mahmoud Abbas, President of the (non-existent) State of Palestine."

Here's just a small sample of the lies and cultural appropriation which permeated Abbas' speech Sept. 26.

He began by proclaiming "Palestine is our homeland, it is the land of our fathers, our grandfathers, it will remain ours" and closed by proclaiming "Our people will live on the land of their fathers and grandfathers as they have done for more than 6,000 years."

It was not 6,000 years, but merely 1,400 years ago when Arabs first began arriving, as settler colonialists, in the Land of Israel, fully half a millennium after an earlier groups of settler colonialists, the Romans, ethnically cleansed what was then called Judea of most of its indigenous Jewish residents and renamed the area Syria Palaestina. Most of those now calling themselves Palestinians come from families that migrated to the Land of Israel far more recently and only adopted the identity of Palestinian in the 1960s.

Abbas appropriated the historical connection of the Jewish people to their holiest site, the Temple Mount, and falsely accused Israel of changing its status quo when it has been the Palestinians who have repeatedly done so.

He said "the al Aqsa mosque and its surroundings, ladies and gentlemen, is the exclusive property of Muslims." The al Aqsa mosque was deliberately built on the ruins of the Jewish Temple 1,600 years after King Solomon built the First Temple there. It is, by far, the holiest site in the world for the Jewish people. For Sunni Muslims, it is a distant third to Mecca and Medina and has no religious significance for Shiite Muslims.

Related to Abbas' lies about the Temple Mount is his assertion that Israel does not deserve to be a member of the U.N., claiming it has violated a commitment to adhere to UN Resolutions 181 and 194.

UN Resolution 181 was the Partition Plan, which called for giving the Arabs nearly 90% of Palestine. While the Zionists accepted the proposal, the Arabs not only rejected it, but launched a genocidal war aimed at destroying Israel the day after David Ben Gurion declared the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in a small portion of the Land of Israel.

Resolution 194 did have a provision calling for the repatriation of "refugees wishing to return to their homes." But that was contingent on their willingness to "live in peace." Not only were the actual refugees never willing to meet that condition, but on Oct. 7 their descendants barbarically demonstrated their continued rejection of that requirement.

Resolution 194 also insisted that "religious buildings and sites in Palestine should be protected and free access to them assured."

Jordan allowed Jews absolutely no access to the Temple Mount during the nineteen years it occupied the eastern portion of Jerusalem.

Israel has also violated the free access provision since it reconquered the Old City after Jordan attacked again in 1967. Subject to unavoidable security precautions, it provides free access to the Temple Mount for Arabs, but severely and increasingly restricts access for Jews. When I first visited Jerusalem in 1980, I was able to enter both the al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. That is no longer allowed. While Muslims have unfettered, 24/7 access to the entire Temple Mount through ten gates, Jews have access only a few hours a day, a few days a week, through just one gate, are greatly restricted as to where on the Temple Mount they may go and are prohibited from praying.

Meanwhile, whereas in 1967 there was just one mosque on the Temple Mount, since then the Muslim Waqf has, illegally, built four more.

Mahmoud Abbas inverted that truth by referring to Jerusalem as "our eternal capital al-Quds" and saying it "is being subjected to entrenched campaigns to change its nature, to Judaize it, and to agress it and its holy sites and landmarks, to change its historic and legal status."

Disturbingly sobering is the way the mendacious Mahmoud Abbas received a standing ovation when he finished his litany of lies, while the next day many diplomats made a show of walking out of the chamber when the prime minister of Israel came and did something rarely done in the United Nations, speaking truthfully.

Alan Stein, Ph.D., is a former longtime resident of Waterbury. He and his wife Marsha currently split their time between Netanya in Israel and Natick, Mass. He is president emeritus of PRIMER-Connecticut (Promoting Responsibility in Middle East Reporting) and the founder of PRIMER-Massachusetts and PRIMER-Israel.

Abbas: No Final Peace

The following came from WAFA, the "Palestine News Agency."

President: No Final Peace Unless all Prisoners Released

RAMALLAH, December 20, 2007 (WAFA)-President Mahmoud Abbas confirmed on Thursday that there would be no final peace unless all Palestinian prisoners released from the Israeli jails.

In a message for hailing the prisoners inside the Israeli jails, President appreciated their sacrifice for the sake for realizing the aspirations of the Palestinian people on the path of establishing an independent Palestinian state , with Jerusalem as its capital.

President stressed that he will not spare effort to release all Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

This is further evidence, as if any were needed, that the so-called "moderate" leader of the Palestinian Authority really has no interest in peace.

Abbas is not talking about innocent civilians or soldiers such as the kidnapped Israelis Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. He is talking about terrorists who murdered or attempted to murder innocent people long after the PLO pledged to end Arab terrorism against Israel.

He is not only being hypocritical, but is implicitly encouraging additional terrorism by committing himself to work for the freedom of any Arab who tries to murder Jews.

Abbas Spokesperson Again Condemns Israeli Self-Defense

The following is excerpted from Abbas agrees to international forces, condemns Israeli airstrikes as reported by the MAAN NEWS AGENCY.

Paris – Ma'an – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced on Tuesday that the Palestinian Authority would agree to the deployment of an international force in the occupied Palestinian territories.

"International forces are absolutely acceptable for us," Abbas said. … Meanwhile Presidential Spokesperson Nabil Abu Rdainah condemned the Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, which killed 11 Palestinians Monday night and Tuesday, calling them a "terrible crime."

He added, "This dangerous escalation comes hours after the Paris conference aiming to thwart the outcome of the conference and disregarding the international efforts of 90 countries that attended the summit."

No mention is made, of course, of the fact that among those hit in the Israeli strike were not only leading terrorists but some terrorists on their way to launch Kassam missiles at Israeli cities.

Had the Palestinian Authority ever adhered to its commitment to abandon terrorism, those Israeli defensive measures would be unnecessary.

One sign that the Palestinian Authority, including its supposedly moderate leader Mahmoud Abbas, is actually interested in peace would be if it supported Israeli life-saving measures against terrorists rather than condemning them.

Abbas is Right

According to a Jerusalem Post story Abbas presses Israel on core issues, "Abbas warned Tuesday that unless all the issues at the root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are solved, violence will break out anew in two or three years."

Abbas is right about the need to address the core issues, but he's the one avoiding the core issues.

The core issue remains, as it has for six decades, the unwillingness of the Arabs to accept the existence of Israel and their unwillingness to coexist in peace.

When it comes to the current situation involving the Palestinian Arabs and Israel, the stumbling block is the continued violation by the Palestinian Arabs of their basic commitments under the Oslo Accords. They continue to resort to terrorism, they continue to refuse to negotiate in good faith, they continue to inflame the street with anti-Israel rhetoric, they continue to praise suicide bombers. They continue to refuse to initiate the first step called for under the "Road Map," the destruction of the terrorist infrastructure they built up in the disputed territories in violation of the Oslo Accords.

In the meantime, with incredible chutzpah, "the chief Palestinian peace negotiator, former PA prime minister Ahmed Qurei, said Tuesday there would be no talks with Israel unless a deadline was set for establishing a Palestinian state."


Unless the Palestinian Arabs are disabused of their continued belief, which unfortunately has generally been well-founded, that as long as they obstinately refuse all compromise everyone will continue to pressure Israel and blame Israel for failure, success will remain impossible.

"Palestinian officials have repeatedly said they want a detailed time line for talks that are expected to begin in earnest after the Annapolis parley. The comment by Ahmed Qurei was the first indication that Palestinians could scuttle negotiations altogether if that demand isn't met."

Condoleeza Rice should give Qurei her phone number and tell him to call if and when he's ready to get serious.

Mahmoud Abbas Then and Now

Part of A Conversation with Mahmoud Abbas published in The Washington Post September 30, 2007.

Question: Is the U.S. policy of squeezing and isolating Hamas a mistake, or do you think it's the right policy?

Answer: In the beginning, I believed that they were mistaken, but now we are in the same position. I am against Hamas.

We can expect Abbas to be against Hamas unless he manages to come to another devil's agreement with them. In that case, he will once again condemn Israel for policies which are really in his own best interest.

The real lesson is the world has to learn to ignore whatever the Palestinian Arab leadership says, since it almost always talks out of both sides of its mouth. This is one case where one must suspect that, at the same time Abbas was condemning Israel for trying to isolate Hamas, he was secretly praying Israel was successful.

Meanwhile, as reported in WorldNet Daily, Eiman Abu Eita, Fatah's representative in the Bethlehem satellite town of Beit Sahour, has admitted that the "Nativity Siege" was pre-orchestrated by the Palestinian Authority.

The article recalls "Israel was widely criticized ... for laying siege to the Nativity Church [in 2002] ... after dozens of Bethlehem-area gunmen, including wanted senior Hamas, Tanzim and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorists, stormed the structure and refused to come out."

According to Abu Eita, "The conspiracy was to make a siege and put all the fighters inside the church so Israel would make the siege. People from the Palestinian Authority collaborated with this conspiracy."

The siege ended after thirty-nine days with the agreement that thirteen of the terrorists would be deported to European countries. Currently, Israel is under pressure to let them return to the disputed territories. This is just another example of the worthlessness of assurances given to Israel in return for concessions.

Palestinian Arab Hypocrisy

According to the New York Times, with the release of funds to the Palestinian Authority now that it has been separated from Hamas, "more than 150,000 Palestinian Authority civil servants and security force members loyal to the new emergency government appointed by President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah will receive a full monthly salary on Wednesday from Palestinian money for the first time in 17 months."

On the other hand, "about 20,000 public sector employees allied with the Hamas-led government of Ismail Haniya, whom Mr. Abbas fired as prime minister, will not be paid from the authority coffers."

When Israel refused to give the Palestinian Authority money with which it would have paid Hamas terrorists, Abbas was harshly critical, as he was of others in the international community who refused to directly fund a Hamas-led government. Now Abbas is essentially doing the same thing.

This hypocrisy is not really surprising; Israel's enemies have never been shy about accusing Israel of actions they themselves are guilty of.

Same Old, Same Old

One would have hoped that the loss of Gaza to their fellow terrorists from Hamas would have taught Fatah a lesson, but the signs indicate there's no basis for optimism.

Going into today's summit, the reports are Abbas is "demanding" the release of Marwan Barghouti, currently serving time for his role in countless murders. Rather than fighting terrorism, he's demanding the release of terrorists.

Another demand is for more weapons, as if Fatah didn't have plenty of weapons already. The problem has never been the lack of weapons; the problem has been they've been used to attack Israelis rather than promote the security of the Arabs living in the portions of the disputed territories administered by the Palestinian Authority.

Based on Fatah's record, Abbas might as well ask Israel to give some weapons directly to Hamas and take others and fire them randomly in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

One has to hope the results of Olmert's goodwill gesture of releasing another 250 Arab terrorists doesn't work out as all past gestures have, with a large percentage going right back to murdering Israelis despite written pledges to refrain from returning to terrorism.

As Pete Seeger asked, when will they ever learn?