Palestine upgraded to observer state inside United Nations

Sixty-five years to the day after the UN voted for the partition of mandatory Palestine - a move the Jews accepted and the Arabs rejected - the same body overwhelmingly voted on Thursday to grant the Palestinian delegation the upgraded status of non-member observer state.

The vote was 138 in favor, nine against and 41 abstaining.

"The moment has arrived for the world to say clearly: Enough of aggression, settlements and occupation," Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said to the packed UN General Assembly.
"We did not come here seeking to delegitimize a state established years ago, and that is Israel; rather we came to affirm the legitimacy of the state that must now achieve its independence, and that is Palestine," he said.

"We did not come here to add further complications to the peace process, which Israel's policies have thrown into the intensive care unit; rather we came to launch a final serious attempt to achieve peace," Abbas continued.

"Our endeavour is not aimed at terminating what remains of the negotiations process, which has lost its objectivity and credibility, but rather aimed at trying to breathe new life into the negotiations and at setting a solid foundation for it based on the terms of reference of the relevant international resolutions in order for the negotiations to succeed."

Abbas said that the Palestinians will accept no less than "the independence of the state of Palestine, with east Jerusalem as its capital, on all the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, to live in peace and security alongside the State of Israel, and a solution for the refugee issue on the basis of Resolution 194."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned Abbas's strong critique of Israel as "hostile and poisonous," and full of "false propaganda."

"These are not the words of a man who wants peace," he said in a statement.

The PA president said nothing about immediately resuming talks with Israel without preconditions, though he did pledge to "act responsibly and positively in our next steps, and... to work to strengthen cooperation with the countries and peoples of the world for the sake of a just peace."

The countries opposing the move were the US, Israel, Canada, the Czech Republic, Palau, Micronesia, Nauru, Panama and the Marshall Islands.

Abbas, who called the resolution a "birth certificate of the reality of the state of Palestine," used the recent fighting in Gaza to frame his request for the statehood upgrade and painted both Israel and its birth in demonic colors.

"Palestine comes today to the United Nations General Assembly at a time when it is still tending to its wounds and still burying its beloved martyrs of children, women and men who have fallen victim to the latest Israeli aggression, still searching for remnants of life amid the ruins of homes destroyed by Israeli bombs on the Gaza Strip, wiping out entire families, their men, women and children murdered along with their dreams, their hopes, their future and their longing to live an ordinary life and to live in freedom and peace," he said.

"The Israeli aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip has confirmed once again the urgent and pressing need to end the Israeli occupation and for our people to gain their freedom and independence," Abbas continued, pointedly avoiding the mention of the rocket and missile bombardment of Israeli cities from Gaza.

"This aggression also confirms the Israeli government's adherence to the policy of occupation, brute force and war, which in turn obliges the international community to shoulder its responsibilities toward the Palestinian people and toward peace."