ABBAS AT U.N TODAY

KING JESUS IS COMING FOR US ANY TIME NOW. THE RAPTURE. BE PREPARED TO GO.

http://gadebate.un.org/68/palestine-state
ABBAS AT THE UN.TEXT SPEECH IN ENGLISH
http://gadebate.un.org/sites/default/files/gastatements/68/PS_en.pdf

A Game of Thrones at Abbas’s UN speech

Seats of power: The Israelis are absent from theirs; the PA president gets to sit in a previously unattainable one

By Rebecca Shimoni Stoil September 27, 2013, 12:19 am 0-The Times of Israel

NEW YORK – The hour of peace for both peoples may have rung Thursday in the United Nations’ temporary General Assembly hall, but one side was not there to hear it. Eyebrows were raised both inside the UN and outside when the Israeli delegation was conspicuously absent from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s address.This, however, was not round two of the Israeli boycott process, following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s order to his UN delegation to walk out before Iranian President Hasan Rouhani’s address here on Tuesday. As Netanyahu prepared to head to the US from Jerusalem Thursday night, the Israelis already here, led by Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz, firmly rejected accusations that the delegation had boycotted Abbas’s speech in the General Assembly plenary debate.“The holiday is the only reason that we weren’t present today,” a delegation representative told The Times of Israel.And in fact, the Israelis had been at pains to maintain a low profile in the final hours of the Sukkot festival. The delegation members hustled out of a Wednesday evening press conference shortly before the sun set, marking the beginning of the holiday of Shemini Atzeret. When they popped up again, it was at a holiday dinner.Delegates maintained the low profile Thursday, absenting themselves from public UN events altogether.But the empty Israeli chairs were not the only notable seating issue during the PA president’s speech. Abbas himself enjoyed a new perspective on the plenum, waiting for his turn while seated for the first time in the large beige chair reserved for heads of state.During last year’s plenary, Abbas was not entitled to such ceremonial prestige. Shortly afterwards, in November 2012, the UN upgraded the PA to the status of nonmember observer state. This upgrade – Abbas subsequently argued to UN officials – entitled him to a seating upgrade as well. The Pope, as head of the Vatican City nonmember observer state, had been allowed to sit in the oversized seat, he argued. Why not the head of the Palestinian Authority?

PA officials excitedly leaked earlier Thursday that Abbas had indeed been granted his upgrade. Tales circling the halls Thursday held that his late predecessor Yasser Arafat had once placed his hand on the then out-of-reach chair to symbolize his aspirations to Palestinian statehood. Whether such stories are apocryphal or not, the chair took its place Thursday in the pantheon of Palestinian symbolism.Abbas’s new head-of-state seating status seemed to be reflected in his performance when he rose from the chair to deliver his address. Whether it was the new seat that did it, or the renewed peace talks between Israel and the PA, or the realization that most world attention is focused elsewhere in the region this year, Abbas’s tone during his GA address this time was markedly more conciliatory – and calmer as well. The angry Abbas, demanding UN recognition of statehood one year ago, was replaced by a more soft-spoken delivery and somewhat gentler content in which he echoed US President Ronald Reagan’s call to tear down the Berlin Wall and quoted poetry.The United States’ chief negotiator excitedly noted on his Twitter account that “at end of UNGA speech Abu Mazen departed from text and added: “The hour of peace for two peoples — Palestinian and Israeli peoples — has rung.”While the Tweet spread, back in the plenary the seats returned to their usual role. As chairs. 

Palestinian leader urges world powers to rein in Israeli settlements

By Matt Spetalnick | Reuters – 1 hr 4 mins ago-SEPT 26,13-yahoonews

By Matt Spetalnick

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Thursday that "time is running out" for Middle East peace efforts and urged world powers to rein in Israeli settlement construction that he said could undermine U.S.-sponsored negotiations.In an address to an annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, Abbas committed to negotiating with Israel in good faith but he also painted what he called a "dispiriting and bleak" picture for peace prospects.Abbas's assessment came one day after Secretary of State John Kerry suggested a more hopeful outlook, saying the two sides had agreed to intensify talks and increase the U.S. role.The resumption of peace talks in July was an achievement for Kerry, but many Israelis and Palestinians - as well as independent experts - are skeptical about the chances of reaching a peace deal in their decades-old conflict."Time is running out, and the window of peace is narrowing and the opportunities are diminishing," Abbas said. "The current round of negotiations appears to be a last chance to realize a just peace."Abbas spoke at the United Nations for the first time in the official name of the State of Palestine. Over U.S. and Israeli objections, the General Assembly in November voted to upgrade the Palestinians to "non-member state" from observer entity.Abbas sought to assure Israelis that the raising of the Palestinians' U.N. status was not meant to "delegitimize" Israel and he called on them to work with him to "sow the seeds of good neighborliness" between their peoples.But he also urged Israelis to abandon "exaggerated security pretexts and obsessions." Israeli security concerns focus mainly on Gaza, where Hamas - a militant group sworn to Israel's destruction - rules instead of Abbas's mainstream Palestinian Authority.He reserved his toughest criticism for Jewish settlement building on occupied land that the Palestinians want for a state of their own, saying it "aims to change the facts on the ground" and has fractured the concept of the so-called two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.The United States is seeking to broker an agreement in which Israel would exist peacefully alongside a new Palestinian state created in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, lands occupied by the Israelis since a 1967 war."The international community is asked to remain alert to condemn and stop any actions on the ground that would undermine negotiations - and I refer here, above all, to the continuation of settlement construction on our Palestinian land, particularly in Jerusalem," Abbas said.The future of settlements is one of the key issues that must be resolved. The last round of peace talks collapsed in 2010 in a dispute over settlement construction in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as their capital.About 350,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, along with some 2.5 million Palestinians, who say that the settlements deny them a viable and contiguous state. The World Court has deemed the settlements to be illegal. Israel disagrees.Abbas met U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday on the U.N. sidelines.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with Obama at the White House on Monday and address the General Assembly on Tuesday.(This story corrects sixth paragraph to say "non-member" instead of "non-state")(Editing by Will Dunham)