Itongadol.- Peace between Israel and the Palestinians will result in recognition of Israel from 57 Arab states, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said during his speech at the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday.
"Let us envision another future… in which Israel will gain the recognition of 57 Arab and Muslim countries and where the States of Palestine and Israel will coexist in peace, in order to realize each people\’s hopes for progress and prosperity," he said.
Abbas spoke at length about the peace process, urging the international community to act to stop continued Israeli settlement building and warning that the window of opportunity for peace is closing.
"The current round of negotiations… appears to be a last chance to realize a just peace," he said.
"The international community is asked to remain alert to condemn and stop any actions on the ground that would undermine negotiations… above all, to the continuation of settlement construction on our Palestinian land, particularly in Jerusalem," he said.
In addition to harshly criticizing Israeli settlement building, Abbas also called on Israel "to stop relying on exaggerated security pretexts and obsessions in order to consecrate occupation, and to stop contriving demands that push the conflict from its defined political terrain towards the abyss of religious conflict."
The PA president cautioned against reaching an interim agreement, saying the Palestinians "refuse to enter into a vortex of a new interim agreement that becomes eternalized, or to enter into transitional arrangements that will become a fixed rule rather than an urgent exception."
"The objective of the negotiations is to secure a lasting peace accord that leads immediately to the establishment of the independence of a fully sovereign State of Palestine, with east Jerusalem as its capital, on all of the Palestinian lands occupied in 1967," Abbas said.