This issue looks at the addresses by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the U.N. General Assembly, as well as the next steps in gaining Palestinian statehood.

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Abbas and Netanyahu Address the UN General Assembly
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday called on Palestinian Authority

Netanyahu file photo

 President Mahmoud Abbas to meet with him immediately in the United Nations — an offer delivered minutes after Abbas gave a harsh, distorted, hate-filled address to the U.N. General Assembly. “I continue to hope that President Abbas will be my partner for peace,” the Israeli prime minister said, after Abbas presented a bid for full membership in the United Nations. “We have to stop negotiating about the negotiations. Let’s just get on with it. Let’s negotiate peace.”
 

Abbas addresses UN

Abbas submitted his application for U.N. membership knowing that he lacked the votes to bring the matter to the Security Council. He said he was armed with only their hopes and dreams – which brought a quick response from Netanyahu. “Yes, hopes and dreams and 10,000 missiles and Grad rockets supplied by Iran,” he said, referring to the vast arsenal of weapons built up by Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza and frequently fired at Israeli civilians.
 
The speeches of the two leaders presented a stark contrast. Abbas blamed the failure of the peace process entirely on Israel. He said he would not return to negotiations unless Israel froze building in the territories. Israel is ready to renew negotiations immediately – without preconditions. Abbas shocked many observers with the harshness of his speech. He stated that the future Palestine should include East Jerusalem, including the city’s Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism. And he called for a return to the 1967 lines – which security experts say are impossible to defend.
 
In his 40-minute speech, Abbas also said he would not recognize Israel as a Jewish state. He condemned the security fence that has saved countless lives, both Palestinian and Jewish, as a “racist annexation wall.” He called for the release of terrorists held in Israeli jails. He even condemned archaeology that has uncovered much evidence of the ancient Jewish kingdoms of Israel and Judea. Netanyahu recalled that Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, as urged by the international community. “We didn’t freeze settlements in Gaza. We uprooted them,” he said. “We uprooted thousands of people from their homes. We bulldozed synagogues. We even uprooted loved ones from their graves. And having done that, we gave the keys of Gaza to President Abbas. We didn’t get peace. We got Iran. The Palestinian Authority collapsed in a day.” Read more.

IT’S NEWS TO ME

Abbas Wants Temple Mount
One Jerusalem reports: Barry Shaw has published a thoughtful article on what the

Western wall

 Palestinians want to accomplish by going ahead with their United Nations strategy. Shaw notes that Abbas bid on Jerusalem would mean the following: “The majority of those that will vote in favor of this proposal know the radical implications of this resolution. Those who are ignorant of the significance of 1967 lines need to be reminded that this would include Israel being forced to cede to the Palestinians such valuable real estate assets as The Temple Mount, The Wailing Wall, The Hurva Synagogue, The Jewish Quarter of the Old City, The Rockefeller Museum, Hadassah Hospital, the Mount of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Room of the Last Supper, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Perhaps the Hebrew University, which also falls within the 67 boundaries, will be renamed “the Islamic University”?
 
Ahmadinejad: Bin-Laden Killing Part of U.S. Cover-up
The Israel Project reports: United Nations, Sept 22 – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday said the United States, the West and “Zionists” were responsible for all of the world’s ills and suggested that the killing of Osama bin Laden was part of a cover-up to prevent the truth about the 9/11 attacks from emerging. At his annual address to the United Nations General Assembly, Ahmadinejad built on his 2010 speech in which he alleged that the United States had orchestrated the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which killed almost 3,000 people, to create a pretext for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
 
Many delegations including those of the United States, Britain, France, Germany and several other nations, walked out of the chamber as the President of the Islamic Republic spoke. The Canadian delegation left their seats empty throughout the speech.

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ON THE LIGHTER SIDE
Those who beat their swords into plowshares generally end up plowing for those who did not.