Mahmoud Abbas, visionary leader

Mahmoud Abbas's Empty Threats‬ by Khaled Abu Toameh

According to senior Palestinian officials in Ramallah, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is considering dismantling the Palestinian Authority if the UN Security Council does not approve his application for full membership of a Palestinian state in the international organization.

‪ In the past five years, Abbas has threatened to resign at least 25 times. Of course he never carried out his threat, which was obviously intended to extract concessions and money from the West. His resignation could actually be a positive step for the Palestinians: it would pave the way for the emergence of new leaders.

‪The threats are Abbas's way of telling Israel and the world that if you do not give me all of what I want, I will step down and you will have to pay salaries to Palestinian civil servants and run the health and education systems in the Palestinian territories.

‪

Dissolving the Palestinian Authority, which was established following the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO, would mean that Israel or the international community would become responsible for managing the affairs of the Palestinians. That is at least the message that Abbas is trying to send when his aides and he talk about the possibility of dissolving the Palestinian Authority and "handing the keys back to Israel.

‪The late Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat used to warn American and European officials that if they did not give him enough money and weapons, the Iranian-backed Hamas would take over the Palestinian Authority. In the end, Hamas won in the January 2006 parliamentary election -- largely because the Americans and Europeans gave money to Arafat without holding him accountable.

‪Abbas has also been warning the Americans and Europeans that failure to fund his regime would result in Hamas's taking over the West Bank as well. But if Hamas one day takes over the West Bank, either by force or through a free and democratic election, it will only be because of Abbas's failure to reform his Fatah faction.

‪But this is not the first time that Palestinian officials talk about dismantling the Palestinian Authority.

‪ In this regard, Abbas is not much different from his predecessor, Arafat, who also used to issue threats and warnings almost every week. Some Palestinians say that Abbas may have learned from Arafat that threats to resign or dismantle the Palestinian Authority are sometimes received with concern in Israel, the US and EU.

Ever since he was elected to succeed Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, Abbas has been threatening either to resign or dissolve the Palestinian Authority almost every Monday and Thursday.

Abbas has issued similar threats so many times in the past that most Palestinians no longer even take them seriously.

Abbas has no intention of stepping down or dissolving the Palestinian Authority. He and the old guard in the PLO will stay in power until the last day of their lives.

Dear New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof

You recently wrote a column in The New York Times entitled "Is Israel Its Own Worst Enemy?"
Asserting that yours is "an act of friendship," you unleashed a torrent of criticism against Israel, claiming, among other angry accusations, that the Jewish state is "endangered most by its leaders and maximalist stance."
I beg to differ. And no, I don't do so as an opponent of a two-state agreement or a fan of settlements throughout the West Bank. I happen to be neither.
While I've never for a moment argued that Israel should be walled off from critical scrutiny, I simply think you've spun a narrative which is highly selective in its purported analysis.
Stripped to its bare minimum, you believe that peace with the Palestinians would be just around the corner if only Israel had enlightened leadership today.
Your main claim is that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu prefers settlements -- a "national suicide policy" -- to peace.
Is that so?
Yes, it's true another step toward building within Gilo, a well-developed Jerusalem neighborhood, was just taken and the timing was unhelpful.
But, in your column, you noted: "Every negotiator knows the framework of a peace agreement." Those negotiators all understand that Gilo will remain part of Israel in any conceivable deal.
No, I'm not one of those you disparage as believing that "Jerusalem must all belong to Israel in any peace deal." But I do know that, in any final agreement, Jerusalem will necessarily look different from what did on the eve of the 1967 Six-Day War, taking into account historical and demographic realities.
But what's most striking is that you insulate the Palestinian Authority (PA) from any responsibility for the current impasse.
While going after Israel with a two-by-four, and grotesquely implying that "hard-liners like Netanyahu" are to be lumped together with "hard-liners like Hamas," the PA gets a free pass.
Is that because you genuinely believe they're squeaky clean, or rather because, as the political cliché goes, they're the "weaker party" and, therefore, need to be coddled?
Either way, you're missing an essential part of the story you're seeking to describe.
First, why isn't the PA at the bargaining table across from Israel? President Abbas was there till early 2009, when, it should be noted, neither side imposed preconditions on the other to pursue those talks. Importantly as well, the Israelis put a far-reaching two-state deal on that table -- not the first such offer, by the way -- only to have it once again rebuffed.
Anything to be learned from that experience?
Second, if the Palestinians can now seek to impose preconditions on Israel for a resumption of talks, why shouldn't Israel be able to do the same?
Moreover, when the prime minister you vilify became Israel's first leader to agree to a moratorium on settlement building for ten months, where were the Palestinians?
Third, did you catch President Abbas' speech at the UN General Assembly on September 23, as part of his unilateral UN gambit? If so, would you characterize it as offering an olive branch? If you were an Israeli, irrespective of President Clinton's unbecoming attempt at ethno-religious categorizing of Israeli citizens, would you take comfort from the Palestinian leader's fiery words?
Fourth, did you by chance see President Abbas' op-ed, on May 15, in your newspaper? Did you notice his rewriting of Middle East history, which the fact checkers somehow missed? Was that piece meant to send an encouraging note to Israel, the other half of the equation, about the PA's credibility as a peace partner?
Fifth, did you read President Abbas' comment, in early September: "We are going to complain that as Palestinians we have been under occupation for 63 years."?
That, of course, takes the "occupation" back to 1948, the year of Israel's establishment, rather than the Six-Day War.
Does this mean, in Palestinian eyes, that the conflict is territorial or existential?
Sixth, did you notice the comment of the Palestinian ambassador to Lebanon, Abdullah Abdullah, as reported the other day in Lebanon's Daily Star?
The ambassador said "even Palestinian refugees who are living in [refugee camps] inside the [Palestinian] state, they are still refugees. They will not be considered citizens."
In other words, he said, the new Palestinian state would "absolutely not" be issuing passports to Palestinian refugees.
Did the PA reject his comment? If so, I missed it.
And if a new Palestinian state is not the answer to the Palestinian refugee issue, then what exactly is?
Seventh, in Brazil, the Palestinian ambassador there, Alzebin Ibrahim, was quoted in the prominent magazineVeja-Brazil as saying to a contingent of university students that "Israel should disappear," expressing his preference for the final outcome. Did you catch it?
Again, if the PA repudiated the ambassador's words, it escaped me.
Eighth, you note that the "Palestinians are divided," but fail to mention the PA-Hamas reconciliation agreement or in any other way address how the Hamas factor is to be addressed in the context of the current diplomatic imbroglio.
Skipping it, however, won't make it go away -- and it's not a minor matter, either.
Ninth, you omit any reference to another PA action that raises questions about prospects for peace -- glorification of Palestinian terrorists.
Among the most glaring examples of late was the visit earlier this year by a PA cabinet minister, Issa Karake, to the family of Abbas Al-Sayed.
Al-Sayed was the Hamas mastermind of the terrorist attack on a Passover Seder in Netanya, an Israeli coastal city. Thirty people were killed in the assault. On March 28, 2011, Isake presented Al-Sayed's family with a commemorative plaque marking the ninth anniversary of the carnage.
If cold-blooded murderers are to be lionized by the PA, does this advance the prospects of peaceful conflict resolution?
And finally, as Prime Minister Netanyahu has said more than once, if the PA were to recognize the goal of two states for two peoples, then, from Israel's viewpoint, the way would be paved for a speedy breakthrough.
But President Abbas can't acknowledge the link between Israel and the Jewish people, i.e., the inherent legitimacy of the state. In fact, he's made clear he won't.
How does that stance help inspire confidence to move the peace process forward?
Respectfully, the Israeli people don't need lectures on the imperatives of peace. After 63 years, I assure you, they understand what the absence of peace means far better than you and I do.
But they also know, to borrow a phrase from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Caro in another context, that "the press's misunderstanding was merely the wish's predilection to be father to the thought."
Perhaps a clearer understanding of the realities on the ground might have steered you away from your own wishful thinking - and one-sided spin. 

Clinton: UNESCO May Endanger US Funds if it Admits PA as Member

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday that the United Nations Education Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO) should re-think its plans to vote on allowing the Palestinian Authority full membership.
Reuters reported that Clinton noted that such a move by UNESCO could cause the United States to cut funds for the organization.
Speaking to reporters in the Dominican Republic, Clinton said she found it “inexplicable” that UNESCO would consider moving ahead on voting to allow the PA membership while its statehood bid was still before the United Nations Security Council.
“I ... would urge the governing body of UNESCO to think again before proceeding with that vote because the decision about status must be made in the United Nations and not in auxiliary groups that are subsidiary to the United Nations,” Clinton was quoted as having said.
Earlier on Wednesday, UNESCO’s board decided to let 193 member countries vote on admitting the PA.
A source at the agency told Reuters that 40 representatives of the 58-member board voted in favor of putting the matter to a vote. Four members -- the United States, Germany, Romania and Latvia -- voted against and the remaining 14 abstained.
The PA submitted an application to the U.N. Security Council last month, demanding full membership and recognition as a sovereign nation with its boundaries along the 1949 Armistice Lines, and claiming much of Israel's capital city, Jerusalem, as its own capital.
Currently the PA holds observer status in the U.N. and in UNESCO, but may have a good chance of winning full membership, since the process for doing so is easier than it is in the full U.N.
However, this is not the first time the PA has attempted to gain full membership in UNESCO, and in the past, the attempt has failed.
Clinton said moves such as this sidestep key issues that can only be resolved through direct negotiations between Israel and the PA.
“Unfortunately there are those who, in their enthusiasm to recognize the aspirations of the Palestinian people, are skipping over the most important step which is determining what the state will look like, what its borders are, how it will deal with the myriad issues that states must address,” she was quoted as saying.
Clinton noted that the United States, which pays 22 percent of UNESCO’s dues, might be required by law to cut off its funding if UNESCO were to accept the PA as a member.
“We are certainly aware of strong legislative prohibition that prevents the United States from funding organizations that jump the gun, so to speak, in recognizing entities before they are fully ready for such recognition,” she said, adding: “It is still our hope and our strong recommendation that we take this to the appropriate forum which is the negotiating table.”
Earlier, U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen called on lawmakers to cut off U.S. funds to UNESCO if the PA effort succeeds.

PMW: PA: US funding freeze is "blackmail," "unjustified" and "collective punishment" Fatah: US aid is a Palestinian "right," since the US is "morally responsible" for Israel's creation

Throughout 2011, Palestinian Authority leaders have mocked and minimized the significance of US aid, and even dared the US to cut off its funding of the PA.
Now that the US has announced a freeze of $200 million dollars, PA leaders are criticizing the US, claiming the freeze is "blackmail." Fatah added that the US and other countries owe the Palestinians financial aid on moral grounds, calling US aid to the PA an "obligation" and a "political and moral right" because the US "aided in the establishment of the State of Israel."

Earlier this year, both PM Salam Fayyad and Chairman Mahmoud Abbas criticized the US for linking its financial support to the PA's political cooperation. Fayyad called US requests "extortion" and Mahmoud Abbas said: "The US is assisting us in the amount of $460 million annually. This does not mean that they dictate to us whatever they want." (See quotes and sources below.)

This week, the official PA daily reported:

"Fatah: We are opposed to blackmail by the American Congress; the aid is a political and moral right... The Fatah movement viewed the decision by Congress to withhold the transfer of aid funds to the PA as political blackmail and bias in favor of the Israeli occupation state."

Fatah spokesman Faiz Abu Aytah:

"There is a moral and human obligation which rests with some of the donor countries, including the American administration, since they are morally responsible for the human tragedy which has befallen the Palestinian people since the Nakba (i.e., "the Catastrophe," term used by Palestinians for the establishment of Israel) in 1948."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 3, 2011]

 

Saeb Erekat, PA chief negotiator:

"We appreciate US aid, but to be blackmailed and bargained with over our right to self-determination, on Jerusalem, and on our Arab and Islamic identity is unacceptable."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 3, 2011]

Ghassan Khatib, PA spokesperson, Director of PA Government Media Center, and former Minister of Planning and Minister of Labor:

"This [the US funding freeze] is not constructive at all. Such moves are unjustified. These are mainly humanitarian and development projects - it is another kind of collective punishment which is going to harm the needs of the public without making any positive contribution."

[The Independent (website), Oct. 1, 2011]

The Palestinian Authority's strong criticism of the US is not new. Throughout 2011, long before the current disagreement, PA leaders and their official media have been mocking US aid:

When PM Salam Fayyad minimized US aid to the PA, calling US financial support "extortion," he added:

"We are not interested in the first place in receiving assistance from any source that threatens to halt its aid for political reasons." 

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 21, 2011]

A day later, Fayyad mocked US aid in a speech broadcast on PA TV:

"We have never referred to this [US] aid as a replacement for our legitimate aspiration to achieve all our national rights. Absolutely [not]. Because our national rights are not for sale or trade for a handful of [American] dollars." 

[PA TV (Fatah), Feb. 22, 2011]

Recently, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly stressed his refusal to compromise with the US regarding the Palestinian statehood request at the UN, even at the cost of losing financial aid from the US:

"Pressure is indeed being exerted so that we won't go [to the UN]... but ultimately there is a supreme Palestinian interest according to which we want to act. ... We have indeed been told that Congress will halt the aid, whether we go to the UN Security Council or to the UN General Assembly." 

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 29, 2011]

Abbas has also expressed pride in his personal refusal to give in to US political requests by citing two examples:

"The US is assisting us in the amount of $460 million annually. This does not mean that they dictate to us whatever they want. I recall that they [the US] said, 'Don't go to the Arab Summit in Damascus,' but we went. They demanded that we should not sign the Egyptian reconciliation document [between Fatah and Hamas], but we sent Azzam Al-Ahmed to sign it." 

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 24, 2011]

Following their leaders' example, Palestinians recently demonstrated against receiving support from USAID. Significantly, the official PA daily gave prominence to the demonstration and published a large picture:

An article in the official PA daily reported on the protest:

"...dozens of Palestinian youth from the Independent Youth Activity group gathered... for a sit-down strike opposite the El-Bireh municipality, protesting what they refer to as 'conditional external funding', which is conditional first and foremost on abandoning so-called 'terror'... They called upon Palestinian youth to internalize the extent of the plot which is being woven by the American institutions against the Palestinian people and the Palestinian cause... The Youth Activity [group] said that this funding is leading to perpetuation of backwardness, increased dependence, the consolidation of [American] hegemony and a weakening of the struggle, since it causes and seeks distortion of consciousness and perceptions, by creating a limbo which they [America] claim represents development, while in fact it is nothing but a bridge to normalization with the enemy (i.e., Israel)."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 11, 2011]

In February, 28 Palestinian municipalities decided to boycott the US and reject US financial assistance. Hatem Abd Al-Qader, who holds Fatah's Jerusalem portfolio, explained that they would not be "humiliated" by receiving what he dismissed as "a bit of aid":

"Hatem Abd Al-Qader, who holds Fatah's Jerusalem portfolio, announced a boycott of the American consulate, its diplomats, and the American institutions in Jerusalem... He added that this boycott 'will continue until the American administration changes its stance concerning the Palestinian cause, and especially concerning the issue of settlements, and apologizes to the Palestinian people and its president, Mahmoud Abbas.' Abd Al-Qader said that the American administration 'cannot extort the Palestinian people and humiliate it with a bit of aid.'"

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 24, 2011]

American money used for anti-American propaganda

The Palestinian Authority has succeeded in creating such broad anti-American sentiment that a Palestinian National Theater director bragged on PA TV that he inserted an anti-American message in his play, which was funded by American money. "I inserted a political statement against America with American money," he said. 

[PA TV (Fatah), July 6 and Sept. 15, 2011]

The Palestinian National Theater used a grant from the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem to stage the American play, Passages of Martin Luther King, written by Stanford scholar Clayborne Carson.

The US Consulate had good intentions with its support of the play, as it wrote in its announcement about the play: "The Passages of Martin Luther King project is one of many programs sponsored by the U.S. Consulate General throughout the year. These programs engage Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, and promote dialogue and mutual understanding between Palestinians and Americans."However, the theater director said that when the American Consul saw what the Palestinian theater had done with US money, "his face turned red."

The following is the interview with Palestinian National Theater artistic director, Kamal Al-Basha:

Kamal Al-Basha: I directed a play about Martin Luther King - Passages of Martin Luther King.

TV host: Funded by USAID?

Kamal Al-Basha: No, not by USAID, by the American Consulate, directly from the American government... I put in scenes that talk about the American-Palestinian relationship. I had one scene - when the American Consul watched the play his face turned red. This scene shows [Palestinian] refusal to have the American flag, refusal to have the American flag on stage because the Americans used their veto against the Palestinian people. I inserted a political statement against America with American money.

[PA TV (Fatah), July 6 and Sept. 15, 2011]

US funding

It should be noted that not only is the US under the Obama administration a major financial supporter of the PA, but since its establishment in 1993, the PA has received more financial aid from the United States than from any other country. Most of the Palestinian infrastructure has benefited from US aid, including schools, hospitals, universities, water systems, road development, sports and more. The "bit of aid" that the PA is rejecting totaled more than half a billion dollars in 2010 alone [Hillary Clinton speech, Nov. 10, 2010, US State Department website].

The following is the article in the official PA daily reporting on the Fatah spokesman's response to the US funding freeze:

Headline: "Fatah: We are opposed to blackmail by the American Congress; the aid is a political and moral right"

"The Fatah movement viewed the decision by Congress to withhold the transfer of aid funds to the PA as political blackmail and bias in favor of the Israeli occupation state. The movement's spokesman, Faiz Abu Aytah, said yesterday that the funds transferred by the donor countries in order to help the Palestinian people, including the money given by the US, are a political right, since it [the US] is the patron for the agreements signed between the PLO and the Israeli government, in order to allow the PA to build its state institutions. He added, 'There is a moral and human obligation which rests with some of the donor countries, including the American administration, since they are morally responsible for the human tragedy which has befallen the Palestinian people since the Nakba (i.e., "the Catastrophe," the term used by Palestinians for the establishment of Israel) in 1948.' He stated that most of these countries aided in the establishment of the State of Israel, at the expense of the state of Palestinian people."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 3, 2011]

 

The following is the article in the official PA daily reporting on Fayyad's response to the US veto of a UN resolution on the issue of Israeli building in Jerusalem and the West Bank:

"Yesterday Prime Minister Salam Fayyad attacked the US in an unprecedented manner. He emphasized his opposition to American 'extortion,' which is expressed in the threat to halt aid to the PA if it insists on appealing to the Security Council to denounce Israeli settlement. Fayyad said: 'We did not agree, and will not agree, to extortion, and our people will never agree to that. We are not interested in the first place in receiving assistance from any source that threatens to halt its aid for political reasons.' In an announcement to the press during his inauguration of a school in the village of Al-Jalameh in the Jenin district, he added: 'I emphasize that we do not view the assistance offered to us as an alternative to liberty for our people. Justice is on our side, and our rights are not for sale, barter, or trade for a handful of dollars.'"

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 21, 2011]

 

US statement on the freeze
This week, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee (and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee) announced it was freezing the administration's request for $200 million in aid to the PA "until the Palestinian statehood issue is sorted out."

Chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen: 

"There must be consequences for Palestinian and UN actions that undermine any hope for true and lasting peace."

[http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/press_display.asp?id=1989]

LA Times Remakes Judah Ben-Hur into 'Palestinian Nobleman'

The Los Angeles Times has converted Judah Ben-Hur, the fictional enslaved Jewish nobleman who serves as a protagonist in Charles Heston's 1951 Hollywood blockbuster, into a "Palestinian nobleman." Today's paper reports:

Based on the novel by Lew Wallace, the period drama revolves around Judah Ben-Hur (Heston), a Palestinian nobleman who is enslaved by the Romans, engages in one of the most thrilling chariot races ever captured on screen, and even encounters Jesus Christ.

Of course, there was no such place as "Palestine" in the time of Jesus, since the Romans didn't rename Judea as "Palestina" until a hundred years after the death of Jesus (a fact that even the New York Times had to correct).

In earlier coverage, the Los Angeles Times had correctly described Ben-Hur's Jewish/Judean identity. For instance, a March 15, 2001 article referred to "the rich, honorable Jewish man Judah Ben-Hur"; a June 17, 1994 article correctly described him as "the Judean"; and a Sept. 14, 1990 article referred to him as "prince of Judea."

Perhaps the paper's 2011 remake of Ben-Hur, the Judean, into Ben-Hur, the "Palestinian," is testament to the success of ongoing efforts to misleading the masses into believing that a sovereign Palestinian entity did in fact exist before 1948, either in antiquity or in more recent history.

Send corrections requests to readers.representative@latimes.com .

A 63 year occupation?

On Friday, Sept. 16, in Ramallah, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas explained his decision to ask the U.N. Security Council to recognize a Palestinian state: “The Palestinian people have been abused for 63 years, generation after generation, under occupation.” The Palestinian news agency WAFA reported a slightly different version in English: “We are going to the U.N. in order to put an end to 63 years of injustice, during which the people of our nation live under an occupation.”

Mistakes happen. We all become confused sometimes with the passing of years. But a week earlier, on Sept. 5, as reported by The New York Times, Abbas told a meeting of Israeli “intellectuals” that “we are going to the U.N. in order to complain that we have lived under occupation in Palestine for 63 years.” Oy, another mistake. But here is what Abbas told the Egyptian newspaper Al-Youm al-Sabea on Aug. 27: “We are the only nation to still be under occupation after 63 years.”

The magic number here is 63. But what does he mean? Could it be, as some try to reassure us, that his calculations connect the Israeli occupation of the last 44 years with the preceding occupation of the “West Bank” by the Jordanian Hashemite kingdom? Examine this: the Hashemite military incursion into Judea and Samaria in May 1948, as part of the effort to abort the newly born state of Israel, was welcomed by the Palestinians. The Jordanian occupation continued for 17 years, between April 1950 -- the date that Judea and Samaria were annexed by the Hashemites -- until June 1967. Alternatively, the occupation lasted 18 years, since the ceasefire of April 1949. In both cases, the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria have been under occupation for 61 or at most 62 years, so why does Abbas insist on saying it has been a 63-year occupation? Is it a coincidence that this is the number of years that the state of Israel has existed?

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The answer can be found on the children's television programs broadcast by the official (and only) Palestinian Authority channel, whose broadcasts are translated by the Palestinian Media Watch organization. Here is an example from Aug. 25:

Moderator: Have you visited the occupied cities since 1948?

Child: I was in Hebron.

Moderator: No. Hebron is a city we are allowed to enter. The occupied cities -- such as Lod, Ramle, Haifa, Jaffa, Acre -- have you visited there?

Child: I was in Haifa and Jaffa.

Moderator: Tell us, are they beautiful?

Child: Yes.

Moderator: We hope that every Palestinian will be able to go to the occupied territories that we don't know and have never been able to see.

Another example was seen in a documentary aired on the Palestinian Authority television channel three weeks ago that said: “Haifa is a famous Palestinian port. Haifa enjoyed a high status among Arabs and the Palestinians, especially before it was occupied in 1948.”

You have to see it, even if you don't want to believe it. Abbas has not made a mistake in his calculations: Since the establishment of the state of Israel and the occupation of Lod, Ramle, Haifa, Jaffa and Acre, it is true that 63 years have passed. Abbas is not confused at all. He is the head of the PLO, the organization for the liberation of Palestine from Jewish presence. As far as he is concerned, the Palestinians in the Galilee and the Negev have been occupied for 63 years.

As long as they convince their children that the Jews are just another religious group and do not constitute a nation, and they teach the next generation that the Jews have no right to exist as sovereigns in some part of Palestine, even based on the 1949 armistice lines, there can never be a peaceful border. A majority at the U.N. supporting the PLO will only encourage their leadership to maintain their tough stance. It has been made clear, yet again, that the abandonment of the cradle of our people in Samaria and Judea will not bring about peace, but rather just the opposite.

The letter that accompanied the formal bid only refers to the "1967 borders" in the context of what other nations recognize, not what he is demanding:

PalArabs throwing shoes at video of Bibi's UN speech

Prime Minister Netanyahu on Meet the Press

Here are some highlights of Prime Minister Netanyahu's appearance on Sunday's Meet the Press.

Let's go to the videotape (sorry - too pressed for time to comment).

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Hamas Dismisses Abbas Speech: He Decreased Palestinians’ Rights

The Hamas terror group dismissed on Friday Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ UN speech, saying that it failed to address PA Arabs’ aspirations.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told the Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency that by recognizing Israel and seeking UN membership for a Palestinian state on 22 percent of ‘historic Palestine,’ Abbas “decreased Palestinians’ rights.”
Barhoum called Abbas to “go back to comprehensive national dialogue [with Hamas, ed.] and to achieve reconciliation and unite the Palestinians.”
Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, signed a reconciliation agreement with Abbas’ Fatah party, which rules in Judea and Samaria, in May. The agreement called for a formation of a unity government, but it has stalled over a leadership row.
Earlier on Friday, Hamas’ Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said that the PA should not beg for a state, adding that “liberation of Palestinian land” should come first.
He said that “what is happening at the United Nations harms the dignity of our Palestinian people,” particularly when there is no guarantee of the ‘right of return’ (the Arabs’ wish to have millions of so-called ‘Palestinian refugees’ - the descendants of Arabs who fled Israel before the 1948 Arab-Israeli war – to return to Israeli cities).
In his speech before the UN General Assembly on Friday, Abbas said he holds the Israeli government responsible for the expansionist movement of the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria, saying that this will destroy chances of peace. He blamed Israel for shattering every peace initiative and claimed that Israel has been occupying ‘Palestinian’ territories for 63 years.
He confirmed that he is submitting an application for a sovereign and independent homeland, which he said contains a request for full member nation status in the UN based on the June 4, 1967 borders. His brandishing of the request was met with a standing ovation by the automatically pro-Arab General Assembly.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu gave his own speech in his response, in which he called on Abbas to drop unilateral moves and return to the negotiating table.
“President Abbas, why don’t you join me?” said Netanyahu. “We have to stop negotiating about the negotiations. Let’s just get on with it. Let’s negotiate peace! Now we’re in the same city. We’re in the same building. So let’s meet here today, in the United Nations!”
(Arutz Sheva’s North American Desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)

Perry Slams Obama on Israel Policy

Disgraced Israeli Gives Friendly Advice to Abbas

The New York Times had to dig deep to find an Israeli who would side with the demands of the Palestinians and criticize Israel for trying to head off a United Nations declaration of a Palestinian State. To try and give credibility to the author the Times simply refers to him as a former Prime Minister. It does not mention that he was forced from office for committing crimes. 

 

The only man who fits this profile is Ehud Olmert. Olmert, who offered Abbas everything, (including the right of return) and was rebuffed expects people to believe that for some unexplained reason Abbas would take Olmert's sweetheart deal that Abbas rejected in the past. That deal includes:

"The city of Jerusalem would be shared. Its Jewish areas would be the capital of Israel and its Arab neighborhoods would become the Palestinian capital. Neither side would declare sovereignty over the city's holy places; they would be administered jointly with the assistance of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

 

The Palestinian refugee problem would be addressed within the framework of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. The new Palestinian state would become the home of all the Palestinian refugees just as the state of Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people. Israel would, however, be prepared to absorb a small number of refugees on humanitarian grounds."

 

Olmert also criticizes Israel for not giving in to all of the Palestinian demands.This is a shameful display by Olmert and the New York Times.

Caroline Glick: Israel Loses At the United Nations

Many friends of Israel are concluding that President Obama's speech at the United Nations is a monumental victory for the State of Israel. Setting aside that Israel would not be facing a Palestinian State vote if President Obama did not call for the recognition of a Palestinian State last year at the UN, or if he would have backed legislation that would cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority if they went through with this stunt, the fact is Obama (at this point) has only delivered words. Even promising and casting a veto on the Security Council is not what Israel needs at this time. As Caroline Glick argues, Israel needs a quick veto but for that to happen the United States must demand a quick vote at the Security Council. At this point it looks like this will be a long drawn out deliberation which will play into the hands of the Palestinians.

Caroline Glick writes:

 

From Israel's perspective, the best possible outcome of the current standoff at the U.N. is for the Palestinians to present their resolution for statehood to the Security Council and for the U.S. to immediately veto it. Such a move would provide closure to this particular round of anti-Israel aggression. But it certainly wouldn't end the danger. The Palestinians can renew their request as often as they please. And given the sympathetic -- indeed enthusiastic -- reception they have received at the U.N., there is little reason to doubt that they will do so.

The worse scenario from Israel's perspective is quickly becoming the more likely one. That scenario is that the Security Council will not bring the Palestinian-statehood resolution to an immediate vote but will instead delay voting on it for an indeterminate period. During that period, the U.S. and the EU will exert massive pressure on Israel to capitulate to whatever Palestinian preconditions for renewing negotiations are on hand.

Israel will face the prospect that if it fails to surrender to all the Palestinian demands, the U.N. will retaliate by passing the Palestinian-statehood resolution. At a minimum, Israel will find itself under a constant barrage of criticism blaming it for the Palestinian decision to abandon the peace process and ask the U.N. to grant them what they refuse to negotiate with Israel.

All of this could have been averted or at least mitigated if the Obama administration had behaved differently. If the White House had announced at an early date that it would automatically veto any resolution calling for Palestinian U.N. membership and would end all U.S. financial and political support for the Palestinian Authority if it went through with its stated aim of applying for U.N. membership as a state, the Palestinians would likely have set aside their plans. But still today President Obama has refused to take any punitive action against the PA and, according to the New York Times, forced Israel to lobby Congress not to cut off foreign aid to the PA.

Israel, General Debate, 66th Session 23 September 2011 Address by His Excellency Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of the State of Israel at the General debate of the 66th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations (New York, 21-24 and 26-30 September 2011)

Transcript PM Netanyahu's UN speech

http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/blogs/netanyahus-un-speech_594122.html

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered the following remarks to U.N. this afternoon, focusing primarily on the Palestinians' statehood bid:
PRIME MIN. NETANYAHU: Thank you, Mr. President.
Ladies and gentlemen, Israel has extended its hand in peace from the moment it was established 63 years ago. On behalf of Israel and the Jewish people, I extend that hand again today. I extend it to the people of Egypt and Jordan, with renewed friendship for neighbors with whom we have made peace. I extend it to the people of Turkey, with respect and good will. I extend it to the people of Libya and Tunisia, with admiration for those trying to build a democratic future. I extend it to the other peoples of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, with whom we want to forge a new beginning. I extend it to the people of Syria, Lebanon and Iran, with awe at the courage of those fighting brutal repression.
But most especially, I extend my hand to the Palestinian people, with whom we seek a just and lasting peace. (Applause.)
Ladies and gentlemen, in Israel our hope for peace never wanes. Our scientists, doctors, innovators, apply their genius to improve the world of tomorrow. Our artists, our writers, enrich the heritage of humanity. Now, I know that this is not exactly the image of Israel that is often portrayed in this hall. After all, it was here in 1975 that the age-old yearning of my people to restore our national life in our ancient biblical homeland -- it was then that this was braided -- branded, rather -- shamefully, as racism. And it was here in 1980, right here, that the historic peace agreement between Israel and Egypt wasn't praised; it was denounced! And it's here year after year that Israel is unjustly singled out for condemnation. It's singled out for condemnation more often than all the nations of the world combined. Twenty-one out of the 27 General Assembly resolutions condemn Israel -- the one true democracy in the Middle East.
Well, this is an unfortunate part of the U.N. institution. It's the -- the theater of the absurd. It doesn't only cast Israel as the villain; it often casts real villains in leading roles: Gadhafi's Libya chaired the U.N. Commission on Human Rights; Saddam's Iraq headed the U.N. Committee on Disarmament.
You might say: That's the past. Well, here's what's happening now -- right now, today. Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon now presides over the U.N. Security Council. This means, in effect, that a terror organization presides over the body entrusted with guaranteeing the world's security.
You couldn't make this thing up.
So here in the U.N., automatic majorities can decide anything. They can decide that the sun sets in the west or rises in the west. I think the first has already been pre-ordained. But they can also decide -- they have decided that the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism's holiest place, is occupied Palestinian territory.
And yet even here in the General Assembly, the truth can sometimes break through. In 1984 when I was appointed Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, I visited the great rabbi of Lubavich. He said to me -- and ladies and gentlemen, I don't want any of you to be offended because from personal experience of serving here, I know there are many honorable men and women, many capable and decent people serving their nations here. But here's what the rebbe said to me. He said to me, you'll be serving in a house of many lies. And then he said, remember that even in the darkest place, the light of a single candle can be seen far and wide.
Today I hope that the light of truth will shine, if only for a few minutes, in a hall that for too long has been a place of darkness for my country. So as Israel's prime minister, I didn't come here to win applause. I came here to speak the truth. (Cheers, applause.) The truth is -- the truth is that Israel wants peace. The truth is that I want peace. The truth is that in the Middle East at all times, but especially during these turbulent days, peace must be anchored in security. The truth is that we cannot achieve peace through U.N. resolutions, but only through direct negotiations between the parties. The truth is that so far the Palestinians have refused to negotiate. The truth is that Israel wants peace with a Palestinian state, but the Palestinians want a state without peace. And the truth is you shouldn't let that happen.
Ladies and gentlemen, when I first came here 27 years ago, the world was divided between East and West. Since then the Cold War ended, great civilizations have risen from centuries of slumber, hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty, countless more are poised to follow, and the remarkable thing is that so far this monumental historic shift has largely occurred peacefully. Yet a malignancy is now growing between East and West that threatens the peace of all. It seeks not to liberate, but to enslave, not to build, but to destroy.
That malignancy is militant Islam. It cloaks itself in the mantle of a great faith, yet it murders Jews, Christians and Muslims alike with unforgiving impartiality. On September 11th it killed thousands of Americans, and it left the twin towers in smoldering ruins. Last night I laid a wreath on the 9/11 memorial. It was deeply moving. But as I was going there, one thing echoed in my mind: the outrageous words of the president of Iran on this podium yesterday. He implied that 9/11 was an American conspiracy. Some of you left this hall. All of you should have.(Applause.)
Since 9/11, militant Islamists slaughtered countless other innocents -- in London and Madrid, in Baghdad and Mumbai, in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, in every part of Israel. I believe that the greatest danger facing our world is that this fanaticism will arm itself with nuclear weapons. And this is precisely what Iran is trying to do.
Can you imagine that man who ranted here yesterday -- can you imagine him armed with nuclear weapons? The international community must stop Iran before it's too late. If Iran is not stopped, we will all face the specter of nuclear terrorism, and the Arab Spring could soon become an Iranian winter. That would be a tragedy. Millions of Arabs have taken to the streets to replace tyranny with liberty, and no one would benefit more than Israel if those committed to freedom and peace would prevail.
This is my fervent hope. But as the prime minister of Israel, I cannot risk the future of the Jewish state on wishful thinking. Leaders must see reality as it is, not as it ought to be. We must do our best to shape the future, but we cannot wish away the dangers of the present.
And the world around Israel is definitely becoming more dangerous. Militant Islam has already taken over Lebanon and Gaza. It's determined to tear apart the peace treaties between Israel and Egypt and between Israel and Jordan. It's poisoned many Arab minds against Jews and Israel, against America and the West. It opposes not the policies of Israel but the existence of Israel.
Now, some argue that the spread of militant Islam, especially in these turbulent times -- if you want to slow it down, they argue, Israel must hurry to make concessions, to make territorial compromises. And this theory sounds simple. Basically it goes like this: Leave the territory, and peace will be advanced. The moderates will be strengthened, the radicals will be kept at bay. And don't worry about the pesky details of how Israel will actually defend itself; international troops will do the job.
These people say to me constantly: Just make a sweeping offer, and everything will work out. You know, there's only one problem with that theory. We've tried it and it hasn't worked. In 2000 Israel made a sweeping peace offer that met virtually all of the Palestinian demands. Arafat rejected it. The Palestinians then launched a terror attack that claimed a thousand Israeli lives.
Prime Minister Olmert afterwards made an even more sweeping offer, in 2008. President Abbas didn't even respond to it.
But Israel did more than just make sweeping offers. We actually left territory. We withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 and from every square inch of Gaza in 2005. That didn't calm the Islamic storm, the militant Islamic storm that threatens us. It only brought the storm closer and make it stronger.
Hezbollah and Hamas fired thousands of rockets against our cities from the very territories we vacated. See, when Israel left Lebanon and Gaza, the moderates didn't defeat the radicals, the moderates were devoured by the radicals. And I regret to say that international troops like UNIFIL in Lebanon and UBAM (ph) in Gaza didn't stop the radicals from attacking Israel.
We left Gaza hoping for peace.
We didn't freeze the settlements in Gaza, we uprooted them. We did exactly what the theory says: Get out, go back to the 1967 borders, dismantle the settlements.
And I don't think people remember how far we went to achieve this. We uprooted thousands of people from their homes. We pulled children out of -- out of their schools and their kindergartens. We bulldozed synagogues. We even -- we even moved loved ones from their graves. And then, having done all that, we gave the keys of Gaza to President Abbas.
Now the theory says it should all work out, and President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority now could build a peaceful state in Gaza. You can remember that the entire world applauded. They applauded our withdrawal as an act of great statesmanship. It was a bold act of peace.
But ladies and gentlemen, we didn't get peace. We got war. We got Iran, which through its proxy Hamas promptly kicked out the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority collapsed in a day -- in one day.
President Abbas just said on this podium that the Palestinians are armed only with their hopes and dreams. Yeah, hopes, dreams and 10,000 missiles and Grad rockets supplied by Iran, not to mention the river of lethal weapons now flowing into Gaza from the Sinai, from Libya, and from elsewhere.
Thousands of missiles have already rained down on our cities. So you might understand that, given all this,Israelis rightly ask: What's to prevent this from happening again in the West Bank? See, most of our major cities in the south of the country are within a few dozen kilometers from Gaza. But in the center of the country, opposite the West Bank, our cities are a few hundred meters or at most a few kilometers away from the edge of the West Bank.
So I want to ask you. Would any of you -- would any of you bring danger so close to your cities, to your families? Would you act so recklessly with the lives of your citizens? Israel is prepared to have a Palestinian state in the West Bank, but we're not prepared to have another Gaza there. And that's why we need to have real security arrangements, which the Palestinians simply refuse to negotiate with us.
Israelis remember the bitter lessons of Gaza. Many of Israel's critics ignore them. They irresponsibly advise Israel to go down this same perilous path again. Your read what these people say and it's as if nothing happened -- just repeating the same advice, the same formulas as though none of this happened.
And these critics continue to press Israel to make far-reaching concessions without first assuring Israel's security. They praise those who unwittingly feed the insatiable crocodile of militant Islam as bold statesmen. They cast as enemies of peace those of us who insist that we must first erect a sturdy barrier to keep the crocodile out, or at the very least jam an iron bar between its gaping jaws.
So in the face of the labels and the libels, Israel must heed better advice. Better a bad press than a good eulogy, and better still would be a fair press whose sense of history extends beyond breakfast, and which recognizes Israel's legitimate security concerns.
I believe that in serious peace negotiations, these needs and concerns can be properly addressed, but they will not be addressed without negotiations. And the needs are many, because Israel is such a tiny country. Without Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, Israel is all of 9 miles wide.
I want to put it for you in perspective, because you're all in the city. That's about two-thirds the length of Manhattan. It's the distance between Battery Park and Columbia University. And don't forget that the people who live in Brooklyn and New Jersey are considerably nicer than some of Israel's neighbors.
So how do you -- how do you protect such a tiny country, surrounded by people sworn to its destruction and armed to the teeth by Iran? Obviously you can't defend it from within that narrow space alone. Israel needs greater strategic depth, and that's exactly why Security Council Resolution 242 didn't require Israel to leave all the territories it captured in the Six-Day War. It talked about withdrawal from territories, to secure and defensible boundaries. And to defend itself, Israel must therefore maintain a long-term Israeli military presence in critical strategic areas in the West Bank.
I explained this to President Abbas. He answered that if a Palestinian state was to be a sovereign country, it could never accept such arrangements. Why not? America has had troops in Japan, Germany and South Korea for more than a half a century. Britain has had an airspace in Cyprus or rather an air base in Cyprus. France has forces in three independent African nations. None of these states claim that they're not sovereign countries.
And there are many other vital security issues that also must be addressed. Take the issue of airspace. Again, Israel's small dimensions create huge security problems. America can be crossed by jet airplane in six hours. To fly across Israel, it takes three minutes. So is Israel's tiny airspace to be chopped in half and given to a Palestinian state not at peace with Israel?
Our major international airport is a few kilometers away from the West Bank. Without peace, will our planes become targets for antiaircraft missiles placed in the adjacent Palestinian state? And how will we stop the smuggling into the West Bank? It's not merely the West Bank, it's the West Bank mountains. It just dominates the coastal plain where most of Israel's population sits below. How could we prevent the smuggling into these mountains of those missiles that could be fired on our cities?
I bring up these problems because they're not theoretical problems. They're very real. And for Israelis, they're life-and- death matters. All these potential cracks in Israel's security have to be sealed in a peace agreement before a Palestinian state is declared, not afterwards, because if you leave it afterwards, they won't be sealed. And these problems will explode in our face and explode the peace.
The Palestinians should first make peace with Israel and then get their state. But I also want to tell you this. After such a peace agreement is signed, Israel will not be the last country to welcome a Palestinian state as a new member of the United Nations. We will be the first. (Applause.)
And there's one more thing. Hamas has been violating international law by holding our soldier Gilad Shalit captive for five years.
They haven't given even one Red Cross visit. He's held in a dungeon, in darkness, against all international norms. Gilad Shalit is the son of Aviva and Noam Shalit. He is the grandson of Zvi Shalit, who escaped the Holocaust by coming to the -- in the 1930s as a boy to the land of Israel. Gilad Shalit is the son of every Israeli family. Every nation represented here should demand his immediate release. (Applause.) If you want to -- if you want to pass a resolution about the Middle East today, that's the resolution you should pass. (Applause.)
Ladies and gentlemen, last year in Israel in Bar-Ilan University, this year in the Knesset and in the U.S. Congress, I laid out my vision for peace in which a demilitarized Palestinian state recognizes the Jewish state. Yes, the Jewish state. After all, this is the body that recognized the Jewish state 64 years ago. Now, don't you think it's about time that Palestinians did the same?
The Jewish state of Israel will always protect the rights of all its minorities, including the more than 1 million Arab citizens of Israel. I wish I could say the same thing about a future Palestinian state, for as Palestinian officials made clear the other day -- in fact, I think they made it right here in New York -- they said the Palestinian state won't allow any Jews in it. They'll be Jew-free -- Judenrein. That's ethnic cleansing. There are laws today in Ramallah that make the selling of land to Jews punishable by death. That's racism. And you know which laws this evokes.
Israel has no intention whatsoever to change the democratic character of our state. We just don't want the Palestinians to try to change the Jewish character of our state. (Applause.) We want to give up -- we want them to give up the fantasy of flooding Israel with millions of Palestinians.
President Abbas just stood here, and he said that the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the settlements. Well, that's odd. Our conflict has been raging for -- was raging for nearly half a century before there was a single Israeli settlement in the West Bank. So if what President Abbas is saying was true, then the -- I guess that the settlements he's talking about are Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jaffa, Be'er Sheva. Maybe that's what he meant the other day when he said that Israel has been occupying Palestinian land for 63 years. He didn't say from 1967; he said from 1948. I hope somebody will bother to ask him this question because it illustrates a simple truth: The core of the conflict is not the settlements. The settlements are a result of the conflict. (Applause.)
The settlements have to be -- it's an issue that has to be addressed and resolved in the course of negotiations. But the core of the conflict has always been and unfortunately remains the refusal of the Palestinians to recognize a Jewish state in any border.
I think it's time that the Palestinian leadership recognizes what every serious international leader has recognized, from Lord Balfour and Lloyd George in 1917, to President Truman in 1948, to President Obama just two days ago right here: Israel is the Jewish state. (Applause.)
President Abbas, stop walking around this issue. Recognize the Jewish state, and make peace with us. In such a genuine peace, Israel is prepared to make painful compromises. We believe that the Palestinians should be neither the citizens of Israel nor its subjects. They should live in a free state of their own. But they should be ready, like us, for compromise. And we will know that they're ready for compromise and for peace when they start taking Israel's security requirements seriously and when they stop denying our historical connection to our ancient homeland.
I often hear them accuse Israel of Judaizing Jerusalem. That's like accusing America of Americanizing Washington, or the British of Anglicizing London. You know why we're called "Jews"? Because we come from Judea.
In my office in Jerusalem, there's a -- there's an ancient seal. It's a signet ring of a Jewish official from the time of the Bible. The seal was found right next to the Western Wall, and it dates back 2,700 years, to the time of King Hezekiah. Now, there's a name of the Jewish official inscribed on the ring in Hebrew. His name was Netanyahu. That's my last name. My first name, Benjamin, dates back a thousand years earlier to Benjamin -- Binyamin -- the son of Jacob, who was also known as Israel. Jacob and his 12 sons roamed these same hills of Judea and Sumeria 4,000 years ago, and there's been a continuous Jewish presence in the land ever since.
And for those Jews who were exiled from our land, they never stopped dreaming of coming back: Jews in Spain, on the eve of their expulsion; Jews in the Ukraine, fleeing the pogroms; Jews fighting the Warsaw Ghetto, as the Nazis were circling around it. They never stopped praying, they never stopped yearning. They whispered: Next year in Jerusalem. Next year in the promised land. (Applause.)
As the prime minister of Israel, I speak for a hundred generations of Jews who were dispersed throughout the lands, who suffered every evil under the Sun, but who never gave up hope of restoring their national life in the one and only Jewish state.
Ladies and gentlemen, I continue to hope that President Abbas will be my partner in peace. I've worked hard to advance that peace. The day I came into office, I called for direct negotiations without preconditions. President Abbas didn't respond. I outlined a vision of peace of two states for two peoples. He still didn't respond. I removed hundreds of roadblocks and checkpoints, to ease freedom of movement in the Palestinian areas; this facilitated a fantastic growth in the Palestinian economy. But again -- no response. I took the unprecedented step of freezing new buildings in the settlements for 10 months. No prime minister did that before, ever.(Scattered applause.) Once again -- you applaud, but there was no response. No response.
In the last few weeks, American officials have put forward ideas to restart peace talks. There were things in those ideas about borders that I didn't like. There were things there about the Jewish state that I'm sure the Palestinians didn't like.
But with all my reservations, I was willing to move forward on these American ideas.
President Abbas, why don't you join me? We have to stop negotiating about the negotiations. Let's just get on with it. Let's negotiate peace. (Applause.)
I spent years defending Israel on the battlefield. I spent decades defending Israel in the court of public opinion. President Abbas, you've dedicated your life to advancing the Palestinian cause. Must this conflict continue for generations, or will we enable our children and our grandchildren to speak in years ahead of how we found a way to end it? That's what we should aim for, and that's what I believe we can achieve.
In two and a half years, we met in Jerusalem only once, even though my door has always been open to you. If you wish, I'll come to Ramallah. Actually, I have a better suggestion. We've both just flown thousands of miles to New York. Now we're in the same city. We're in the same building. So let's meet here today in the United Nations. (Applause.) Who's there to stop us? What is there to stop us? If we genuinely want peace, what is there to stop us from meeting today and beginning peace negotiations?
And I suggest we talk openly and honestly. Let's listen to one another. Let's do as we say in the Middle East: Let's talk "doogli" (ph). That means straightforward. I'll tell you my needs and concerns. You'll tell me yours. And with God's help, we'll find the common ground of peace. (Applause.)
There's an old Arab saying that you cannot applaud with one hand. Well, the same is true of peace. I cannot make peace alone. I cannot make peace without you. President Abbas, I extend my hand -- the hand of Israel -- in peace. I hope that you will grasp that hand. We are both the sons of Abraham. My people call him Avraham. Your people call him Ibrahim. We share the same patriarch. We dwell in the same land. Our destinies are intertwined. Let us realize the vision of Isaiah -- (speaks in Hebrew) -- "The people who walk in darkness will see a great light." Let that light be the light of peace. (Applause.)