Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in his address to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday that his people will "no longer continue to be bound" by the Oslo Accord and subsequent agreements signed with Israel until the Israeli government honors its commitments, reported The Guardian.
Abbas asserted that Palestine is a "state under occupation" and blamed Israel for repeatedly violating the agreements, most notably by its continued expansion of settlements in the West Bank. He added that there is no reason the Palestinians should remain faithful to the 20-year-old agreements if the Israelis don't uphold their end and don't even recognize Palestine as a state, according to Newsweek.
"We will not accept temporary solutions or a fragmented state," Abbas said, calling the current arrangement "unconscionable." "A historic injustice has been inflicted upon a people and a homeland, a people that had lived peacefully in their lands."
The Oslo Accords of 1993 and subsequent agreements created the Palestinian Authority government and were designed to lay the groundwork for a two-state solution, as well as to outline security, economic and other arrangements in the Palestinian territories taken over by Israel during the 1967 war, according to The New York Times.
However, Israel has actively tried to prevent a two-state solution, Abbas said as he rejected the idea of more wasteful negotiations and asked the U.N. to provide international humanitarian protections for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation "before it is too late."
"The transitional Oslo Agreement and its annexes, and subsequent agreements signed with Israel, stipulated that the agreements would be implemented within five years, ending in 1999 with full independence for the State of Palestine and the termination of the Israeli occupation," Abbas said, according to The Washington Post. "We declare that as long as Israel refuses to commit to the agreements signed with us, which render us an authority without real powers, and as long as Israel refuses to cease settlement activities and to release of the fourth group of Palestinian prisoners in accordance with our agreements, they leave us no choice but to insist that we will not remain the only ones committed to the implementation of these agreements."
He continued: "What is required is to mobilize international efforts to oversee an end to the occupation in line with the resolutions of international legitimacy ... We will start the implementation of this declaration by all peaceful and legal means. Either the Palestinian National Authority will be the conduit of the Palestinian people from occupation to independence, or Israel, the occupying power, must bear all of its responsibilities."
Abbas also called for Palestine's full membership in the U.N., where it is currently considered an "observer state" with a right to speak at U.N. events but no right to vote on resolutions.
Following his address, the Palestinian flag was raised in the U.N.'s Rose Garden for the first time.
Abbas dedicated the flag-raising ceremony to "the martyrs, the prisoners and the wounded, and to those who gave their lives while trying to raise this flag," reported Al Jazeera.
