Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Mideast disputes prominent
Netanyahu lashes out at Iran; Abbas assails U.S., Israel
Netanyahu lashes out at Iran while Abbas assails U.S. and Israel at U.N. General Assembly.
UNITED NATIONS — Disputes in the Mideast took center stage at the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday, as tensions among Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Iran and the United States swept across the annual gathering in New York.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Iran on of keeping a “secret atomic warehouse” just outside its capital, despite the 2015 deal with world powers that was meant to keep it from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Holding up a posterboard map of an area near Tehran as he spoke, Netanyahu told world leaders that Iranian officials have been keeping up to 300 tons of nuclear equipment and material in a walled, unremarkable-looking property near a rug-cleaning operation.
Iranian state television called the announcement “ridiculous,” and Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported Netanyahu’s remarks with barely disguised disdain, saying he “annually launches a ridiculous show at the U.N. General Assembly.”
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani defended the 2015 deal at the United Nations earlier this week, and upon return home Thursday, he said most other countries either directly or indirectly backed the accord, reached by Iran, the United States and five other major powers.
Netanyahu’s accusation Thursday about Iran came shortly after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas criticized Israel and the U.S. in his own speech, declaring to the General Assembly that his people’s rights “are not up for bargaining” and he accused the U.S. of undermining the two-state solution, a day after President Donald Trump suggested for the first time in office that he “liked” the long-discussed idea as the most effective way to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Abbas halted ties with Trump’s administration in December after the U.S. recognized contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and Palestinians have said a pending U.S. peace plan will be dead on arrival because of that and other recent U.S. moves that Palestinians see as favoring Israel.
“Jerusalem is not for sale,” Abbas said to applause as he began his speech. “The Palestinian people’s rights are not up for bargaining.”
He said Palestinians would never reject negotiation, but that “it’s really ironic that the American administration still talks about what they call the ‘deal of the century.’ ”
“What is left for this administration to give to the Palestinian people?” he asked. “What is left as a political solution?”
Added Abbas: “We are not redundant. Why are we treated as redundant people who should be gotten rid of?”
On the sidelines away from the main hall, the head of the U.N. agency that helps 5.3 million Palestinian refugees said it is facing a financial crisis after the United States cut funding, and that the problem of their well-being will continue to exist whether there’s money or not — and especially if it was forced to shut down.
While the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, got some good news Wednesday with new pledges of $118 million, it remains $68 million in the hole this year. And in January it will face the problem of trying to find funding for next year’s budget of about $1.2 billion.
“Of course, we worry about it,” UNRWA Commissioner General Pierre Krahenbuhl told reporters during a news briefing. “The key question for next year will be whether these countries that have shown themselves so generous in supporting us this year are they prepared to sustain those contributions?”
Meanwhile, small island nations have been using the weeklong gathering of world leaders to highlight the one issue that threatens their existence: global warming.
Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise urged rich countries Thursday to stick to their pledges under the 2015 Paris accord, which includes financial aid for vulnerable nations to adapt to and mitigate the impact of climate change.
The day before, Seychelles President Danny Faure said for his country, the effects of climate change are already a daily reality.
The Indian Ocean nation is one of dozens of Small Island Developing States, or SIDS for short, that are at risk of being washed over as rising temperatures make the oceans rise.
During a special session of the U.N. Security Council, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the world stands at the “dawn of a new day” in relations with North Korea but that international sanctions must remain in place and vigorously enforced if diplomatic efforts to get the country to denuclearize are to succeed — a position that faced resistance from China and Russia.
Pompeo said the U.S. has proof that U.N. sanctions, particularly those restricting North Korean oil imports and coal exports, are being violated and he demanded that U.N. members ensure they are respected.