UNITED NATIONS, United States: Israel is deliberately impeding progress toward a two-state solution and can no longer be considered a reliable partner in the peace process, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the United Nations on Friday.
Repeating grievances against Israel’s government and security forces, Abbas said the Jewish state has acted with "total impunity" against people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and that Palestinians’ trust in the prospects for peace is "regressing."
Israel "is, through its premeditated and deliberate policies, destroying the two-state solution," the Palestinian Authority president said in a speech to the UN General Assembly. "This proves unequivocally that Israel does not believe in peace," he added.
"Therefore, we no longer have an Israeli partner to whom we can talk." Abbas, 87, said Israel has been engaged in a campaign of land confiscation in the occupied territories and was giving the military "total freedom" to kill or otherwise use excessive force against Palestinians.
"This is the truth: they are an apartheid regime," he said. In demanding the international community hold Israel accountable "for the massacres they have committed," Abbas accused members of the United Nations of "protecting Israel" from such accountability.
He reiterated the Palestinians’ position that the case of Israel be brought before the International Criminal Court so that it is forced to "shoulder its legal, political, moral and financial responsibilities."
The United States has been urging the Palestinian Authority not to pursue a case at the ICC, arguing it is not a sovereign state and that the court unfairly targets Israel."Israel has racist laws and is establishing apartheid," he said. "They are an apartheid regime. They are doing this with total impunity. Why aren’t they being held accountable by international law? Who is protecting them?" he asked.
"The United Nations protects them, and on top of this, the most powerful nations in the United Nations. Why are there these double standards? Why aren’t we treated equally?" "Israel, since its founding, has committed heinous crimes against our people," he said. They have destroyed 529 villages, expelling their dwellings during and after the war of 1948," he said.
He accused Israel of committing more than 50 massacres since its founding, "the most recent massacre" against Gaza, which he said Israel targeted with missiles. "They launched missiles and used tanks to kill children," he said.
Abbas said that the Palestinians will go to the International Criminal Court "and all the courts of the world and ask Israel to be held accountable." "Does Israel wish to remain a colonizing people forever?" He asked, "Should we wait a century, or two centuries?" before claiming that the Palestinians are "the only people on this planet living under occupation."
He said that Palestine will no longer be the only party abiding to the Oslo Accords. "Those agreements are not valid anymore as a result of the persistent violations by Israel. Although we ask them to end the occupation, hostile policies and unilateral actions according to the Oslo Accords," Israel was the first to violate them, he said.