Palestinian flag to be raised at United Nations
“Unlike the Palestinians, Israel is closely safeguarding the status quo at the Temple Mount and is committed to continue and keep it, according to all the understandings between us and the Jordanians and the Waqf”, Netanyahu continued, using the Jewish name for the complex.
“Israel and enter into direct negotiations with Israel without preconditions”.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon congratulated Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday on the upcoming raising of the Palestinian flag at United Nations headquarters.
“The man who denied the Holocaust, that the PA under his leadership has brought wild incitement against Israel to unparalleled heights, and whose entire existence is possible, thanks to the presence of Israel and the IDF in Judea and Samaria, again threatens us with a gun without bullets”, the Yesha Council said in statement. Abbas’ speech reflected growing Palestinian frustration and appeared aimed at focusing the attention of the international community – busy with the Syrian civil war and the migrants’ crisis in Europe – on the long-festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Mr Abbas’ government controls the West Bank while Hamas, branded a terrorist organisation by Israel and the United States, controls the Gaza Strip.
119 member states of the United Nations General Assembly had voted in favour of flying the flag.
On Thursday, he urged his audience to “stand with Israel as we check the fanaticism at our door”, adding: “More than ever, Israel is defending you”.
Although he did not provide a timeline for severing the PA’s many agreements with Israel, Abbas said he would start implementing by “peaceful and legal means”. Unfortunately, President Abbas said on Wednesday that he is not prepared to do this.
So heres my message to the rulers of Iran: Your plan to destroy Israel will fail. The permanent flagpole for the Palestinian flag is already in place beside it. “I think it was a way of Netanyahu pivoting to say…”
Netanyahu’s speech came four days after Obama spoke in the U.N. chamber and defended the Iran deal as vindication for his strategy of pursuing hard-nosed diplomacy even with America’s enemies.
The Israeli and Palestinian leaders will speak before the UN this week.
Abbas said it was an “historical moment in the struggle of the Palestinian people towards freedom and independence”.
ABC News reports that the crowd cheered when the Palestine flag “started to flutter in the gentle breeze”. “We will not accept temporary solutions or a fragmented state“.