World opinion shifts against Russia as Ukraine worries grow Abbas says hope of peace with Israel ‘waning’
UNITED NATIONS— Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Friday that hope of peace with Israel was “waning,” as the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations took a brief foray from the dominating issue of the war in Ukraine.
Speaking a day after the Israeli prime minister, Abbas delivered a pessimistic assessment of diplomacy, saying a “frantic campaign to confiscate our lands” persisted in the generations-long dispute, while the military “are killing the Palestinian people in broad daylight” with impunity.
“Our confidence in achieving a peace based on justice and international law is waning, due to the Israeli occupation policies,” he said. “Do you want to kill what remains of hope in our souls?”
Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank is now in its 55th year. The last substantial round of peace talks ended in 2009, and critics say growing Israeli settlements in the West Bank and elsewhere undermine any hopes for a two-state solution. The Palestinians seek all of the West Bank, home to some 500,000 Israeli settlers, along with Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, for a future state.
Israel’s prime minister repeated Thursday that he supports a two-state solution — but there is almost no prospect for one in the near term. And Yair Lapid also said militants in Gaza must stop firing rockets into Israel.
After three days of debate in which many world leaders’ criticisms of the U.N. were focused on Russia’s seat on the Security Council and the veto power it wields, Abbas shifted the attention to the power of Israel and its allies, which he said meant no matter how many hundreds of resolutions pass, none would be implemented.
“Do you know who is protecting Israel from being held accountable? The United Nations,” he said. “Why these double standards? Why don’t they treat us equally with the others?”
Israel, in turn, has complained that it has been treated unfairly by the world body and has been held to a different standard from other member states, for example when it comes to complaints about human rights violations.
Abbas has staked his political legitimacy abroad and at home on his commitment to a negotiated peace deal with Israel. But main broker between the sides, the U.S., has opted over the past decade for conflict management over pushing for a revival of negotiations. Such a push would have required, among other things, pressure on Israel to halt settlements on occupied lands — something successive U.S. administrations have shied from.
Abbas is in the 18th year of what should have been a fouryear term and does not seem to have an alternative to the idea of a negotiated peace deal. If he were to walk away, something he has threatened in the past, he might quickly lose international support at a time when he is deeply unpopular at home.
Delegates who sat through 106 speeches in the first three days of general debate girded for 35 more Friday. Besides the Palestinian leader, men representing two other geopolitical hot spots remained: Pakistan and Iraq.
Familiar refrains have resounded in U.N. speeches, with repeated mentions of climate change, economic crises, inequality. The gathering is a rare moment for many leaders to grab the spotlight on a global stage dominated by the biggest, richest and most military mighty countries.
“The obligation of each leader before history is not to overlook failings and shortcomings in favor of wishful thinking or flattery,” President Nicos Anastasiades of Cyprus said Friday in his final General Assembly speech as leader of the Mediterranean island nation.
NEW YORK — The tide of international opinion appears to be decisively shifting against Russia, as a number of nonaligned countries are joining the United States and its allies in condemning Moscow’s war in Ukraine and its threats to the principles of the international rules-based order.
Western officials have repeatedly said that Russia has become isolated since invading Ukraine in February. Until recently, though, that was largely wishful thinking. But on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, much of the international community spoke out against the conflict in a rare display of unity at the often fractured United Nations.
The tide appeared to be turning against Russian President Vladimir Putin even before Thursday’s U.N. speeches. Chinese and Indian leaders had been critical of the war at a summit last week in Uzbekistan. And the U.N. General Assembly disregarded Russia’s objections and voted overwhelmingly to allow Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to be the only leader to address the body remotely, instead of requiring him to appear in person.
That shift against Russia accelerated after Putin on Wednesday announced the mobilization of some additional 300,000 troops to Ukraine, signaling the unlikelihood of a quick end to the war. Putin also suggested that nuclear weapons may be an option. That followed an announcement of Russia’s intention to hold independence referenda in several occupied Ukrainian regions with an eye toward possible annexation.
Those announcements came at the very moment that the General Assembly, considered the premier event in the global diplomatic calendar, was taking place in New York.
Numerous world leaders used their speeches on Tuesday and Wednesday to denounce Russia’s war. That trend continued Thursday both in the assembly hall and at the usually deeply divided U.N. Security Council, where, one-by-one, virtually all of the 15 council members served up harsh criticism of Russia — a council member — for aggravating several already severe global crises and imperiling the foundations of the world body.
The apparent shift in opinion offers some hope to Ukraine and its Western allies that increasing isolation will add pressure on Putin to negotiate a peace. But few are unduly optimistic. Putin has staked his legacy on the Ukraine war and few expect him to back down.