Palestinian flag flies at United Nations for the first time
The Palestinian flag was raised at United Nations headquarters for the first time on Wednesday afternoon in New York City, accompanying Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas’s speech to the world body on the same day.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon shake hands on Wednesday with the U.N. flag (left) and the Palestinian flag (right) by their sides. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten.
At a flag-raising ceremony, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the event a “day of pride for the Palestinian people around the world” and said it is time “to restore confidence by both Israelis and Palestinians for a peaceful settlement and, at last, the realization of two states for two peoples.”
Yet on the same day, Abbas told the U.N. General Assembly that the PA would stop abiding by the 1993 Oslo Accords, which intended to create peace
The Palestinian flag is raised at United Nations headquarters for the first time on Sept. 30. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten.
between the Israelis and Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Abbas’s speech was “deceitful and encourages incitement and lawlessness in the Middle East.”
The Palestinians have “non-member observer state” status in the U.N., a designation they secured in 2012.
Despite recognizing a “State of Palestine” through its ratification of a treaty this past May, the Vatican in August requested that it be removed from a Palestinian-prepared U.N. General Assembly resolution that called for the flags of “Palestine” and the Holy See to be flown at U.N. headquarters. The resolution was prepared without consulting the Vatican.
Report from JNS.org
The Palestinian Arabs began their violations of the Oslo Accord before the ink was dry on the paper.
For instance, shortly after the signing, Yasser Arafat, master of the doctrine of taqyia, told a Johannesburg audience that the Oslo Accords were an Arab Trojan horse that would facilitate the achievement of the Arab goal of destroying Israel
Hear, hear.