Jon Stewart's Skewering of Trump in New York Civil Fraud Cause Just Blew...
Did the Hosts of 'The View' Do Their Homework When They Invited This...
Actually, Kate Middleton Does Have a Body Double...Sort of
Hard Times for the Professional Never Trump Losers
President Joe ‘Forrest Gump’ Biden
Checking the Black Box
Trump Reacts to RFK Jr.'s VP Pick
VDH Explains What Any 'Normal' President Would Do About Border That Would End...
Yes, a Terrorist Attack Is Coming to America
Americans Can Tell the Difference Between Rosy Economic Data and Reality
What's Wrong With America's 'Elites'?
Fani Willis Calls Jim Jordan's Investigation Into Her Office 'Politically Motivated'
Tyson Foods Fires U.S. Workers, Exploits Illegal Aliens for Profits
We Must Return to a 'Peace Through Strength' Foreign Policy
Church Should Be About Worship, Not Entertainment
OPINION

Abbas Should Have Been Jeered, Not Applauded, at the UN

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

MAHMOUD ABBAS addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday in his capacity as "President of State of Palestine," or so the official text posted on the UN website identifies him.

Advertisement

In reality, Abbas is no more the lawful president of Palestine than George W. Bush is the lawful president of the United States. Both were sworn in for four-year terms in January 2005. Those terms expired more than six years ago. If Bush had appeared before the UN plenum this week and presumed to announce a change in American policy, he would have been thought delusional and jeered off the podium. That is the reaction that Abbas deserved when he traveled to UN headquarters in New York and proclaimed that the Palestinian Authority will no longer be bound by agreements signed with Israel.

But in what is by now a long-established charade, the world body pretended to accept Abbas's political legitimacy. Delegates listened courteously as he declared that the kleptocratic and dictatorial Palestinian Authority is committed to "the rule of law and transparency as a democratic and modern state." They didn't burst into laughter — though they should have — when he assured them that he and the Palestinian leadership are "spreading the culture of peace and coexistence" with Israel. Or when he accused the Jewish state — the only Middle East government that scrupulously protects the full religious freedom of its minorities — of using "brutal force to ... undermine the Islamic and Christian sanctities in Jerusalem."

Advertisement

To speak for the Palestinian Authority at the UN is to be indulged in any claim, however dishonest. Abbas's speech was replete with falsehoods, but the most egregious were his pieties about the "two-state solution." Like Yasser Arafat before him, Abbas has no intention of ever accepting the legitimacy of a Jewish state of Israel alongside an Arab state of Palestine. Incitement against Israel and the demonization of Jewish sovereignty has been a staple of Palestinian Authority rhetoric for years; one more speech at the UN changed nothing. It merely prolonged the disgraceful sham of treating a Palestinian strongman's hate-filled lies as if they were respectable truths, and thereby ensuring the continuation of a conflict that could have ended two generations ago.

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Recommended

Trending on Townhall Videos