Palestinian president denied US visa, addresses UN from Ramallah

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the UN General Assembly on Thursday, delivering pre-recorded remarks from his office in Ramallah after the US denied him and other top Palestinian officials visas to attend the gathering for the second year in a row.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to speak in person early in the afternoon.

Since 2005 the now-90-year-old Abbas has led the Palestinian Authority, which is the internationally recognised representative of the Palestinian people. But his support among Palestinians has withered during years of corruption and the sometimes violent advance of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

Under Abbas, Palestine has been recognised as a country by a majority of UN member states. But on the ground in the West Bank, the mostly symbolic moves have not affected Israel’s decades long military occupation.

Throughout the war in Gaza, Abbas and the authority have been largely sidelined from negotiations over its future in favour of a transition process shepherded by President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace.

The Palestinian Authority was created under a series of peace agreements with Israel in the 1990s and administers semiautonomous areas of the West Bank, while relying heavily on foreign aid. It is the internationally recognised representative of the Palestinian people.

It was ousted from Gaza after Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006 and violently seized control. Abbas was elected to what was supposed to be a four-year term in 2005. The authority has not held presidential or legislative elections since 2006.

Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 war, and the Palestinians want both as part of their future state. The Palestinians and much of the international community view the settlements as illegal and as an obstacle to creating a viable, contiguous Palestinian state.