News & Views

Mahmoud Abbas has formally asked the United Nations to recognise a Palestinian state, defying intense US pressure to abandon the move with a powerful appeal to the conscience of the world to recognise that the Palestinian people were entitled to their own "Arab spring". The Palestinian leader was greeted with extended applause as he told the UN general assembly that he was seeking recognition of a Palestinian state on land occupied by Israel since 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital because nearly two decades of peace negotiations had failed. "I do not believe anyone with a shred of conscience can reject our application for a full membership of the United Nations and our admission as a full-member state," he said. "At a time when the Arab people affirm their quest for democracy – the Arab spring – the time is now for the Palestinian spring, the time for independence. "It is a moment of truth and my people are waiting to hear the answer of the world. Will it allow Israel to continue its occupation, the only occupation in the world?" The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, responded in an uncompromising speech to the UN by saying he was seeking a "just and lasting peace" with the Palestinians but would not jeopardise the Jewish state's security. "The Palestinians should first make peace with Israel and then get their state," he said. He attacked the UN as a "theatre of the absurd", unfit to decide on whether there should be a Palestinian state. "Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon chairs the UN security council. A terror organisation presides over the body entrusted with world security. You couldn't make this stuff up," he said.