Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas spoke in front of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Monday, calling the Palestinian case the “biggest test for the council.”
“Success in the Palestinian case will determine the continuity of human rights in the whole world,” Abbas told the assembly in Geneva.
The Palestinian president added that discussions about temporary solutions and backing down from existing achievements would not serve the peace process, and called on all nations which recognize Israel to extend the same recognition to Palestine in the context of a two-state solution.
Mahmoud Abbas: Defend two-state-solution for a Palestine state https://t.co/UPOTZ6sO12 pic.twitter.com/rB7PdOULZt
— Al Jazeera News (@AJENews) February 27, 2017
Abbas expressed his willingness to work with the entire international community, including US President Donald Trump, to achieve a two-state solution resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
However, he warned against steps which only further entrench the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories intended for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, notably mentioning Israel’s recently passed Regularization law — which grants official governmental recognition to a number of illegal settlement outposts in the occupied Palestinian territory — and Trump’s campaign promise to move the US embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Israel, Abbas said, has put itself above international law through its continuous violations of Palestinians’ human rights, as he called for UNSC Resolution 2334, which condemns illegal Israeli settlements, to be concretely implemented as soon as possible to enable the creation of a Palestinian state.
Mahmoud Abbas is "willing to work with international community and #Trump to reach two-state solution
— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) February 27, 2017
While Abbas’ Palestinian Authority and members of the international community have rested the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the discontinuation of illegal Israeli settlements and the establishment of a two-state solution, Israeli leaders have instead shifted further to the right, with more than 50 percent of the ministers in the current Israeli government publicly stating their opposition to a Palestinian state.
A number of Palestinian activists have criticized the two-state solution as unsustainable and unlikely to bring durable peace given the existing political context, proposing instead a binational state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians.
(Ma’an, PC, Social Media)
