Palestine urges UN to suspend Israel’s membership as Nakba Day marked

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged the United Nations (UN) to suspend Israel’s UN membership unless it ‘enforces a proper resolution establishing separate Jewish and Arab states and allows the return of Palestinian refugees who were driven out from their homeland forcibly during the formation of Israel’.

He made the remarks during his address to the UN at its headquarters in New York.

Reacting to the UN’s first-ever Nakba commemoration, Israel’s UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan sent letters to the General Assembly ambassador and objected to the Nakba commemoration day, urging them not to hold any kind of event which goes ‘against Israel’.

He termed this event an ‘abominable ‘ and a ‘blatant attempt to distort Israel’s history’.

He further said that those who attended this event would be ‘condoning antisemitism’ and are giving a soft hand to Palestinians to continue ‘exploiting international organs’ to promote their ‘libellous and malicious narrative’ against Israel.

The Israeli foreign ministry stated that 32 countries, including the United States, Canada, Ukraine and 10 from the European Union, did not attend.

In an emotionally-charged speech, Abbas questioned the world’s nations why the UN passed more than 1,000 resolutions regarding the plight of Palestinians but has never been able to enforce them to date.

Abbas prompted the letter of Israel’s foreign minister, Moshe Sharett, about the resolutions of Palestine, adopted in 1947 and 1948 which mentioned the promise to create a sovereign state of Palestine and allow the return of refugees who were driven out to Lebanon. He said, “Either they fulfil these obligations or they should be barred from becoming a member of the UN.”

He stated that Israel should accept and apologise for the Nakba, as well as compensate the refugees and the territory it presently occupies. He also stated that if the core concerns are not addressed, the Palestinians would continue to seek legal redress, including through the International Criminal Court.

His speech was met with thunderous applause from the vast audience in a UN conference room.

For the first time since 1948, the United Nations (UN) commemorated and recognised the Nakba of the Palestinian people with an official event, on Monday, at the headquarters of the international body in New York City.