Free Republic

NEW YORK (AP) — Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel on Friday of conducting a "war of genocide" and a "series of absolute war crimes" during the 50-day summer conflict in Gaza, but stopped short of saying he will pursue war crime charges against the Jewish state at the International Criminal Court...

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of ethnic cleansing Thursday for building settlements in east Jerusalem. "It is a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people via the demolition of their homes," Abbas said in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly. Shortly after, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebuked Abbas in his own address to the assembly. "We won't solve our conflict with libelous speeches at the U.N.," Netanyahu said. …

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Thursday he would seek to have the Palestinians' U.N. status upgraded to a sovereign country and cautioned that Israeli settlement expansion meant time was running out for a two-state solution. "Despite all the complexities of the prevailing reality and all the frustrations that abound, we say before the international community there is still a chance—maybe the last—to save the two-state solution and to salvage peace," Abbas told the U.N. General Assembly. But he warned the 193-nation assembly that Israel was "promising the Palestinian people a new catastrophe" if it continues with its current Jewish...

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in his U.N. address blasted Israel as seeking to end the two-state solution but tamped down any plans to seek statehood unilaterally. Describing what he said were "racist" attacks by settlers on Palestinians in collusion with the Israeli government, Abbas told the General Assembly on Thursday that he has reached the conclusion "that the Israeli government rejects the two-state solution." He said, however, that Palestinians remain ready to negotiate a two-state solution. … This year, however, Abbas said that instead of seeking full Palestinian statehood recognition throughout the U.N. Security Council , he would seek...