Abbas urges UN to stop the war in Gaza in General Assembly speech

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00:00Listening to that with me, Douglas Herbert, our foreign affairs commentator,

00:04and Doug, look, speak to us a little bit about what you thought of his speech

00:08because obviously this is a profoundly grim moment for the Palestinians, but

00:12there was some substance in what he had to say there.

00:15Yeah, it's interesting, right, because look, Mahmoud Abbas, he's an 88-year-old, wildly

00:20unpopular leader, he's really been really on the sidelines, well for years, of the

00:26Palestinian governance, but he's been on the sidelines more than ever really

00:29since October 7, 2023, and the day of the ferocious Hamas assault on Israel.

00:37He barely has control, very limited control, in the West Bank, none at all in Gaza, where

00:43Hamas is the sort of accepted leader authority by the residents there.

00:50So what is, I guess, strikes me the most is that he steps to the podium, you think,

00:54who's listening to him?

00:56Who hears his voice?

00:57Who is he speaking for?

01:00And he struck me as quite vigorous, actually.

01:03He struck me as in fine metal.

01:07We hear a lot these days, from all corners, Israeli officials, Arab officials, almost

01:12anyone you ask, anyone you speak to, this is a man who, by the reckonings, is on his

01:18last legs, sort of.

01:20He's very corrupt, he barely leaves his residence, he doesn't travel far and wide

01:27throughout his realm.

01:28He sits like an aging emperor on his throne with only the authority bestowed on him by

01:33the fact that the U.S. and some of its allies continue to officially recognize him as the

01:39titular head of the Palestinian Authority, and by extension, the representative of the

01:44Palestinian people, although most Palestinians wouldn't make that connect-the-dot extension.

01:49So like I said, it was a vigorous speech where, yeah, there was nothing tremendously new about

01:54it.

01:55He gave a speech last year, 2023, many of the same denunciations of the obstructionism,

02:01as he sees it, by the U.S., obstructing, you know, well, this year he's talking about obviously

02:06ceasefires in what's been a horrific war, but also denouncing Israel, the lies of the

02:12Israeli prime minister, as he calls them, calling for full membership of his organization,

02:18obviously in the United Nations, and begging, pleading for that two-state, that Palestinian

02:25state coexisting side-by-side with an Israeli state.

02:28But like I said, you know, we captioned this throughout his speech, his words being, stop

02:34this crime, stop it now, stop the genocide, stop sending weapons to Israel.

02:40This has been the refrain throughout the world from the pro-Palestinian protests that we

02:46saw on campuses, on the streets of those who were supporting Palestine, basically calling

02:52it a genocide, calling for powers such as the U.S. and its allies to stop supporting

02:57this war, as they see it, by supplying weapons to Israel.

03:00So you did have, if you knew nothing about Mahmoud Abbas, if you had not been following

03:05the dynamics of this conflict and the leadership and the split within the Palestinians themselves

03:09between Gaza and Hamas and the Palestinian Authority based in the West Bank, if you knew

03:14nothing of any of that, you'd say, wow, this is, yes, an aging leader, but a leader who

03:19very much seems very lucid and in command of his message, whether you agree with it

03:23or not.

03:24And this might be a technical point, Doug, but it is worth spelling out in what capacity

03:29Mahmoud Abbas was speaking at the U.N. General Assembly today.

03:33He is the president of the state of Palestine.

03:35That's how he's referred to at the U.N. level.

03:37What does that mean?

03:38Well, what it doesn't mean is that the state of Palestine is not recognized as a state

03:43member of the United Nations.

03:46And that is a big distinction.

03:48What he is allowed to do is he is allowed to sit among the assembly members, the 193-member

03:53General Assembly.

03:55And in the past decade, he has enjoyed, because his status was upgraded, he used to be an

04:01entity.

04:02Before 2012, the state of Palestine, as it's called at the U.N. now, was simply referred

04:07to as an entity that was upgraded to an observer state and then a non-member observer state.

04:13He can't vote at the United Nations, but the fact he's able to sit among the full-fledged

04:19members of that assembly, the fact he is able to take to the podium and have as much time

04:24as all of those members have that prominent global stage from which to pitch his message

04:29to the world, that is something that he can boast about to his people.

04:35And that, you could argue, it is exactly these types of appearances, even if it's an annual

04:40one before the U.N. General Assembly, that gives him the little vestiges, the shreds

04:44of authority that he might have left, even if he's a very diminished figure among the

04:49Palestinian people themselves.

04:50I think last year, a survey showed that 78% of Palestinians want Abbas to resign, to step

04:57down from his job.

04:59And there are those who say that if he were to step foot in Gaza, which is obviously separated

05:03physically, geographically separated from West Bank, where he actually resides and

05:08governs in a limited way, if he were actually step foot in there, he wouldn't survive.

05:12He is a loathed, reviled, hated figure there.

05:16Hamas is the recognized governing authority in Gaza.

05:21And that's been the case since Abbas and the Palestinian Authority were violently ousted

05:26from the Gaza Strip in 2007.

05:29So I would say today, being a non-member observer state, Abbas obviously would love that full

05:35membership, but I don't think he's complaining with the visibility in the forum that he was

05:38given today and that he has been given in recent years as a non-member observer state.

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