Palestinians’ frustration visible

In his speech during the 69th session of the UN General Assembly, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas described the situation in the Palestinian territories candidly, touching a nerve with Israel whose attacks on Gaza last August he described as genocidal.

Israel took issue with the description; it, of course, does not accept to be put in the dock for committing crimes against the Palestinians, but its actions cannot be described but as genocidal.

Its indiscriminate shelling of buildings, private and public, destruction of basic infrastructure, killing of thousands and maiming of thousands more in the Gaza Strip was tantamount to genocide.

The US, never one to act at least neutrally when it comes to its great ally, Israel, thought that the speech was “counterproductive”, presumably because it called for a specific timetable to end the Israeli occupation and to create an independent Palestinian state.

There was nothing counterproductive or unreasonable in Abbas’ words: “There is no meaning or value in negotiations for which the agreed objective is not ending the Israeli occupation and achieving the independence of the state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital on the entire Palestinian territory occupied in the 1967 war.”

He, after all, merely reiterated the wording of UN resolutions with which most of the international community agrees.

Palestinians are frustrated with the futile series of talks with Israel that, over the past five decades, followed a cyclical pattern to suit the interests of this or that party, mainly Israel and an occasional US president or secretary of state.

It is more and more difficult for a Palestinian leader to find further justifications for using diplomatic niceties — usually scaling down demands and complying with Israel’s insatiable greed for more land and fewer Palestinians — in the hope that peace will be reached on the basis of the two-state solution.

Palestinians are not going away, if Israel is banking on that, despite its ethnic cleansing campaigns.

It would be to the benefit of both sides — of the region as a whole, for that matter — to sue for peace and reach a fair solution.

Israel surely knows that, so why procrastinate?