Abbas Urges UN To Expel Israel in Inaugural ‘Nakba Day’ Observance
Abbas infuriated many with comparisons to the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas delivered a speech at UN headquarters in New York on Monday and demanded that Israel grant the Palestinians a state, as well as a right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees.
“We demand today, officially, in accordance with international law and international resolutions, to make sure that Israel respects these resolutions, or suspend Israel’s membership from the UN,” Abbas said. He was addressing the UN General Assembly’s inaugural remembrance of the Nakba, the Arabic word for “catastrophe,” which Palestinians use for the displacement and dispossession they experienced during Israel’s War of Independence in 1948.
Abbas also compared Israeli statements to rhetoric by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
“Israeli and Zionist claims continue by saying Israel made the desert bloom. As if Palestine was a desert and they made the desert bloom,” Abbas said. “These are lies. They continue to lie, like Goebbels, and they continue to lie until people believe their lies.”
Abbas called for an annual UN event to commemorate the Nakba, and accused the United Kingdom and the United States of bearing responsibility for the Palestinian people’s plight.
“Britain and the United States specifically bear political and ethical responsibility directly for the Nakba of the Palestinian people because they took part in rendering our people a victim when they decided to establish and plant another entity in our historic homeland for their own colonial goals,” Abbas said.
The UN event faced strong opposition from Israel, which labeled it a “distortion of history.” Israel claimed to have successfully persuaded numerous countries to boycott the commemoration.
Israel’s envoy to the UN, Gilad Erdan, denounced the event as condoning “Jew-hatred” and promoting a libelous narrative against Israel.
The US did not participate in the event, citing the UN’s bias against Israel, but acknowledged the plight of Palestinian refugees.
