Professor Anne Bayefsky, the President of the Human Rights Voices human rights organization, spoke to Arutz Sheva - Israel National News about the speech Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas gave at the United Nations General Assembly today (Thursday).
"In quite a feat, at this year's annual gathering of world leaders, the United Nations has managed to look even more pathetic than last year," Prof. Bayefsky said.
She stated, "Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas gave this list of comedic lines: 1. He really wants to hold elections (after 19 years) but Israel is the problem. 2. Israel rejected two states in the 1940s not Arabs. 3. Palestinians want a state of Israel (doesn't mention a Jewish state) and a State of Palestine - but - Israel is a 'rogue state,' a criminal operation 'since 1948' that has been committing genocide 'since its inception.' 4. Palestinian leaders are very keen on freedom, peace, justice and international law."
"Unfortunately, his rabid antisemitism and calls to delegitimize a Jewish state, are no laughing matter. In his appetite for 'peace,' Abbas demanded Israel be kicked out of the UN and promised to introduce such a resolution. In his longing for coexistence, he ranted about Jews - in his lingo - the attempt to 'Judaize' 'his' property. In his tirade that Israel was firing up religious conflict, he said the holiest site in Judaism, the Temple Mount, was the 'exclusive property of Muslims,'" she noted.
Prof. Bayefsky blamed the US government for encouraging Abbas' rhetoric and his strategic reliance on the UN to circumvent the Oslo Accords and a negotiated settlement. "When it was all over, and his UN fan club stood up and clapped, what remained in pieces was shattered American leadership. A Biden-Harris administration that has coddled him, paid him, and supported many UN-sponsored strategies against Israel - starting with multiple UN Security Council resolutions since October 7th that have never condemned Hamas or October 7th. President Biden's last speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday played hardball with Israel and not Iran - the former being the number one specific focus of his lecture and the latter given a two-sentence mention. Little wonder Abbas had no compunction spewing more hate and inciting more violence."
"The Biden-Harris foreign policy of currying favor with a United Nations crowd that is not even primarily democratic, was even more pitiful when set beside the courageous statement later that day of Javier Milei, President of Argentina. Milei, unapologetically, told it like it is: 'We have seen how an organization, which was born to defend human rights, has been one of the main promoters of the systematic violation of freedom...In this same house that claims to defend human rights, they have allowed bloody dictatorships such as those in Cuba and Venezuela to enter the Human Rights Council without the slightest reproach...In this same house - systematically - they have voted against the State of Israel, which is the only country in the Middle East that defends liberal democracy, while simultaneously demonstrating a total inability to respond to the scourge of terrorism.'
"If only the United States President could speak those truths when and where it counts, our world would be a better place," Prof. Bayefsky said.