Abbas Expresses Commitment to Peace

Well, that went better than Ahmadinejad’s speech. In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas promised to do everything possible to make peace negotiations with Israel succeed. Though he didn’t directly address the Sunday expiration of Israel’s moratorium on settlement construction, he did say that "Israel must choose between peace and the continuation of settlements.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been evading Obama’s pleas to extend the moratorium, but he did say that renewed settlement construction might be on a reduced scale. Israel wants Palestinians to come to the negotiation table without preconditions, but Abbas told the U.N. General Assembly that he wants Israel to halt settlement construction as well as end the Gaza blockade and dismantle the West Bank barrier. Egypt’s foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, seconded Abbas, saying that "If Israel fails in its commitment to continue freezing its settlement activities, then it would expose the negotiation process to failure and it would shoulder full responsibility before the region and world public opinion.”