Riyad Mansour
Riyad MansourReuters

The Palestinian Authority’s (PA) permanent representative to the UN, Riyad Mansour, on Wednesday gave a speech before the UN General Assembly on the occasion of the "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People", marked by the UN each year on November 29, the day on which the UN in 1947 approved the Partition Plan which paved the way for the establishment of the State of Israel.

Mansour said he was giving his speech in the name of Mahmoud Abbas, “the President of the State of Palestine”.

"Peace is our highest goal," he said on behalf of Abbas. "We hope that President Trump's initiative will lead to a peace deal in accordance with the two-state solution in which Israel and Palestine will live side by side in security, peace and good neighborliness."

Mansour then accused Israel, which he called "the occupying power," of non-commitment to the two-state solution and of implementing an “apartheid regime”.

“If there is no agreement based on the two-state solution, the Palestinians will demand full and equal rights for all the inhabitants of historic Palestine,” he threatened on behalf of Abbas.

Mansour in his speech also condemned the British government for not correcting what he claimed was the “injustice” caused to the Palestinian people by the 1917 Balfour Declaration. He also demanded a British apology, compensation and recognition of the “State of Palestine”. The speech also stressed that the Jewish people had no right in “Palestine”.

The "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People" is used annually by Israel’s adversaries in the UN to pass a series of biased resolutions.

The PA has for months been waging a campaign aimed at forcing Britain to apologize for the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which proclaimed Britain’s support for the establishment of a Jewish national home in then-Palestine.

The PA government in Ramallah recently demanded not just a British apology for the document, but also compensation. The British government has refused to apologize.