Abbas warns Palestinian Authority will no longer recognize Israel
Abbas' threat comes as the Biden administration shows little appetite for taking on the prospect of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas warned on Friday that his administration would no longer recognize Israel if the Jewish State did not stop occupying Palestinian territory taken since the 1967 war within one year.
"We must state that Israel, the occupying power, has one year to withdraw from the Palestinian territory it occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem,” Abbas said during a virtual speech before the United Nations General Assembly in New York Friday.
Palestinians see East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, as stipulated by the 1993 Oslo Accords. But the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians has been on life support for years, with little stopping Israel’s expansion of settlements inside Palestinian territory in violation of international law.
Abbas, whose stagnant two-decade rule suffers worsening legitimacy among Palestinians, called on UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to convene an international conference this year to work towards resolving the conflict with Israel.
