Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s United Nations address, a potential U.S.-Turkey weapons deal, and the prison sentencing of a former French president.
‘Palestine Is Ours’
Foreign leader after foreign leader has taken the podium at the United Nations General Assembly this week to condemn Israel’s war in Gaza and endorse an independent Palestinian state. On Thursday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas championed that call.
“There can be no justice if Palestine is not free,” Abbas said in a prerecorded video address, having been barred from attending the high-level meetings in person after the Trump administration revoked the Palestinian leader’s visa. “[W]e are ready to work” toward a peace plan that would end the Israel-Hamas war and begin reconstruction in Gaza, he added. “Palestine is ours.”
That plan refers to a Sept. 22 proposal that would establish a state of Palestine within the region’s 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Hamas and its allies would not be granted a place in governance and would have to hand over their weapons.
“We do not want an armed state,” Abbas reiterated in his Thursday speech. Instead, the Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs parts of the occupied West Bank, would take over leadership of Gaza—a move that many foreign powers have supported due to the PA’s recent reform efforts.
In several instances on Thursday, Abbas denounced antisemitism; condemned Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel; called for Hamas to release the hostages and for Israel to release imprisoned Palestinians; and backed Israel’s right to exist. Referring to the Oct. 7 attack, Abbas declared: “These actions do not represent the Palestinian people nor do they represent their just struggle for freedom and independence.”
At the same time, Abbas accused Israel of carrying out a “war of genocide, destruction, starvation, and displacement” in Gaza that disproportionately has killed and wounded unarmed Palestinian women, children, and older adults. His remarks came as Israeli forces advanced deeper into Gaza City on Thursday, killing at least 19 people across the territory in what Israel says is part of an ongoing operation to target “terrorist infrastructure” embedded in the populated area.
“What Israel is carrying out is not merely an aggression,” Abbas said. “It is a war crime and a crime against humanity that is both documented and monitored, and it will be recorded in history books and the pages of international conscience as one of the most horrific chapters of humanitarian tragedy in the 20th and 21st centuries.”
Abbas also condemned Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem while denouncing settler violence against Palestinians there in addition to warning against the continued blocking of humanitarian aid entering Gaza and criticizing Israel’s strike on Hamas leadership in Qatar.
Echoing Abbas’s message, several nations (largely led by France) have used this week’s U.N. summit to recognize an independent Palestinian state. However, Israel and its closest ally, the United States, remain opposed to such actions. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to address this diplomatic pressure during his U.N. address in New York City on Friday.
Today’s Most Read
- Trump to U.N.: ‘Your Countries Are Going to Hell’ by Christina Lu
- Trump Is Learning Geopolitics 101 in Real Time by Suzanne Nossel
- Trump Makes U-Turn on Ukraine Rhetoric by Sam Skove
What We’re Following
Weapons purchases. U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House on Thursday to discuss lifting a U.S. hold on the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Ankara as well as other major purchases of weapons, including the U.S. Patriot missile system and F-16 military planes. “I think he’ll be successful with buying the things he’d like to buy,” Trump said.
This is Erdogan’s first visit to the White House in roughly six years, having had a tenuous relationship with the Biden administration over Turkey’s friendly ties with Russia. Washington previously prohibited Ankara from purchasing F-35 jets out of fear that Moscow would be able to gather information on U.S. military capabilities via Turkey’s use of Russia’s S-400 surface-to-air missile system.
Trump has a closer relationship with Erdogan, yet similar concerns remained a sticking point in their conversation on Thursday, with the U.S. president accusing Ankara of continuing to purchase Russian oil and thereby helping fund Moscow’s war against Ukraine. “The best thing he [Erdogan] could do is not buy oil and gas from Russia,” Trump said. “If he did that, that would be probably the best thing.”
Behind bars. A Paris court on Thursday found former French President Nicolas Sarkozy guilty of a criminal conspiracy surrounding his 2007 campaign and sentenced him to five years in prison. Sarkozy, who led France from 2007 to 2012, was found guilty of receiving a roughly $54 million illegal campaign contribution from former Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi’s government in exchange for diplomatic favors.
Sarkozy is the first French president in the country’s modern history to be sentenced to prison time. (Former French President Jacques Chirac was convicted of corruption in 2011 but received a suspended prison sentence). The start date of Sarkozy’s imprisonment has yet to be determined, though. Two of Sarkozy’s closest allies—former chief of staff Claude Guéant and former Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux—were also convicted of criminal association.
This is not Sarkozy’s first conviction—nor his first prison sentence—since leaving office, though he has not yet had to serve jail time, and he has already been stripped of France’s highest distinction, the Legion of Honor. But the former French leader has stated his intention to appeal the ruling, having previously described the financing plot as simply “an idea.”
“If they absolutely want me to sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison, but with my head held high,” Sarkozy said. “I am innocent. This injustice is a scandal.”
Drone fears. Danish authorities spotted unidentified drones hovering over several commercial and military-use airports overnight late Wednesday. It is unclear where the drones originated from or who was operating them, but Denmark’s defense minister said on Thursday that the drone activity was part of an effort to sow fear in the country.
Similar sightings over the main airports in Copenhagen and Oslo earlier this week have Denmark—and the rest of Europe—on high alert, especially after Russian aircraft violated Polish, Estonian, and Romanian airspace in recent weeks. This is the “most serious attack so far” on the country’s critical infrastructure, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Tuesday after the initial sightings. The Kremlin has dismissed allegations that it was involved in the airport flyovers.
Odds and Ends
If running 26.2 miles wasn’t hard enough, one enterprising athlete took on the Berlin Marathon with an extra challenge. Israeli runner Moshe Lederfien completed the race in just under 5 hours and 38 minutes—with a pineapple balanced on his head. This is not the first time that Lederfien has done this. And according to his nearly 11,000-follower Instagram account, he’s now training with a watermelon.
The post Abbas Denounces Israel’s ‘War of Genocide’ in UNGA Speech appeared first on Foreign Policy.
