(United Nations) Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned the UN General Assembly on Thursday that there will be no peace in the Middle East without taking into account the “legitimate rights” of his people , that is, the implementation of a two-state solution.
“Those who think that peace can prevail in the Middle East without the Palestinian people enjoying all of their legitimate national rights would be mistaken,” denounced Mr. Abbas at the start of his speech in the form of diatribe against Israel.
The president of the Palestinian Authority made this warning at the United Nations headquarters in New York the day after statements by the leaders of Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United States and Iran regarding the ongoing rapprochement between Riyadh and the Jewish state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US President Joe Biden in New York on Wednesday that he hoped for a “historic peace agreement” between his country and Saudi Arabia.
At the same time, Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman declared on American television Fox News that this historic normalization was “getting closer every day”.
However, he stressed that “the Palestinian question was very important” for the Sunni monarchy.
But such a rapprochement is not to the taste of Iran, sworn enemy of Israel and the United States and rival of Saudi Arabia: its president Ebrahim Raïssi, also present in New York, warned that normalization Israeli-Saudi would be “a stab in the back of the Palestinians”.
The Shiite Islamic Republic has also moved closer to Riyadh since the spring, under the surprise aegis of China.
The United States, which has gradually withdrawn from the Near and Middle East since the presidency of Barack Obama (2009-2017), believes that reconciliations between regional powers would have a “powerful effect on the stabilization of the region, on the “integration of the region, about bringing people together,” according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
But Washington, long a mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has abandoned any attempt to bring the Jewish state and the Palestinians of Mahmoud Abbas back to the negotiating table.
Mr. Abbas, 87 years old and Palestinian president for 18 years, called on the United Nations for an international conference which “is the last opportunity to save the two-state solution (Israeli and Palestinian) and to prevent the situation from deteriorating further and to threaten the security and stability of our region and the entire world.