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In Fiery Speech, Palestinian President Abbas Condemns United States, Threatens Violence,  Denies Jewish History

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas / Getty Images
December 14, 2017

At an Organization of the Islamic Conference summit in Turkey Wednesday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas delivered a defiant speech in which he condemned the Trump administration and the United States, called on countries to end their recognition of Israel, threatened the world with violence, and claimed that Jewish history in Jerusalem is fabricated.

The speech, delivered in Arabic and independently translated by the Washington Free Beacon, was a response to President Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Below are selections of his remarks.

  • "These unilateral steps by President Trump will not give any legitimacy to Israel in Jerusalem. It is a Palestinian Arab Muslim Christian city, the eternal capital of the state of Palestine. There can be no Palestinian state without the city of Jerusalem as its capital. Moreover, there will be no peace in the region and in the world without it."
  • "The U.S. Congress issued 27 resolutions saying we are terrorists, even when we have signed an agreement with the U.S. and 83 other states on fighting terrorism. Despite that, Congress insists we are terrorists, and we are not; it is they who invented terrorism. We have complied with all understandings between us and successive U.S. administrations, including this administration, but these illegal resolutions on Jerusalem have crossed all red lines, which will not make it possible for us to keep our commitments unilaterally."
  • "International law says that the state must meet three conditions: authority [i.e., government], population, and borders. But the third condition is not available in Israel, and I challenge it to say where its borders are. This leads us to [the conclusion] that recognizing it is invalid.
  • "I wonder, how can world nations remain silent to these violations of international law, and how can they continue to recognize Israel and deal with it while it mocks everyone, and continues to violate the agreements signed with it, and persists in its repressive and colonialist practices, and the creation of an apartheid, and the desecration of our peoples and our Christian and Islamic sacred [places]."
  • "In all our conferences and resolutions, we have unanimously agreed that Jerusalem is a red line, and now we must translate all this into actions that force the United States to retreat from this sin and prevent other countries from taking similar steps."
  • "To demand that the countries of the world review their recognition of the State of Israel as long as it insists on violating the rules of international law, and on violating all international resolutions since its establishment in 1948. We will go with your company and your support next week to the Security Council in order to obtain for full membership in the United Nations. If we do not succeed, we will go the following week, and so on. There are countries that have applied dozens of times to obtain full membership, and they obtained it in the end."
  • "Jerusalem...is the capital of Palestine, the blessed Holy Land, the place where the heavenly messages came down, where our honorable Prophet Muhammad - peace be upon him - journeyed and from which he ascended to heaven. It is the cradle of Christ, peace be upon him, and the resting place of our master Abraham, peace be upon him. Jerusalem is the city of peace, the gate of heaven, the city of Al-Aqsa Mosque, the first of the two Qibla, the second mosque and the third of the two holy mosques, the city of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This city is the eternal capital of the state of Palestine which will remain steadfast in the face of the attempts to target it, and it will emerge victorious.
  • "The occupation is trying to falsify history. The Torah says that the Canaanites were present before our master Abraham, peace be upon him, and their presence has not ceased to this day. Our right to Jerusalem, and to other parts [of the country], exists forever."
  • "If the State of Palestine is not established with its capital Jerusalem on the borders of June 4, 1967, there will be no peace in the area, the region or the world, and they must choose."

Published under: Israel