ISRAEL: Mahmoud Abbas, the president of Palestine, called Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s proposal for a two-state solution a “positive development,” but he said that the real test would be a restart of talks.
In a speech to the U.N. General Assembly that mostly denounced Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, he said, “The true test of the credibility and seriousness of this stance is for the Israeli government to return to the negotiation table immediately.”
During the Middle East conflict of 1967, Israel conquered East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, which are the areas the Palestinians want for their state. Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations under American sponsorship failed in 2014.
For an Israeli state and a Palestinian state to coexist, a two-state solution must be reached. However, negotiations have long been stuck.
Palestinians and human rights organizations claim that Israel’s military occupation of millions of Palestinians and ongoing settlement building have solidified the Jewish state’s hold over the occupied Palestinian territory. Some have questioned whether a two-state solution was still conceivable in light of this.
The majority of nations consider Israel’s West Bank settlements to be illegal. It contests that, asserting that the region serves as both a defensive fortress and a birthright guaranteed by the Bible.
While the Western countries have backed the two-state solution, according to Abbas, they have prevented it from being put into action by declining to recognize Palestine as a state and by protecting Israel from responsibility.
To end Israel’s occupation, he urged the UN to recognize Palestine as a full member state and present a strategy for doing so.
Israeli officials, according to Erdan’s tweet, will ensure that any effort to recognize the Palestinians as a full state fails.
Abbas reaffirmed the Palestinian perspective in his speech, claiming that Shireen Abu Akleh, an Al Jazeera journalist, was shot and died in May while documenting an Israeli raid in the West Bank by an Israeli sniper. He requested that the US pursue justice for Abu Akleh, a dual citizen of the US and Palestine.
Despite not being intentionally targeted, Abu Akleh was most likely shot by an Israeli soldier, according to an Israeli investigation following her death.
Most countries deem Israel’s West Bank settlements illegal. It disputes that, describing the territory as a biblical birthright and defensive bulwark. Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan took on Twitter stating that it was the Palestinians who had rejected peace plans in the past.
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