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00:00Listening to that with me, Douglas Herbert, our foreign affairs commentator,
00:04and Doug, look, speak to us a little bit about what you thought of his speech
00:08because obviously this is a profoundly grim moment for the Palestinians, but
00:12there was some substance in what he had to say there.
00:15Yeah, it's interesting, right, because look, Mahmoud Abbas, he's an 88-year-old, wildly
00:20unpopular leader, he's really been really on the sidelines, well for years, of the
00:26Palestinian governance, but he's been on the sidelines more than ever really
00:29since October 7, 2023, and the day of the ferocious Hamas assault on Israel.
00:37He barely has control, very limited control, in the West Bank, none at all in Gaza, where
00:43Hamas is the sort of accepted leader authority by the residents there.
00:50So what is, I guess, strikes me the most is that he steps to the podium, you think,
00:54who's listening to him?
00:56Who hears his voice?
00:57Who is he speaking for?
01:00And he struck me as quite vigorous, actually.
01:03He struck me as in fine metal.
01:07We hear a lot these days, from all corners, Israeli officials, Arab officials, almost
01:12anyone you ask, anyone you speak to, this is a man who, by the reckonings, is on his
01:18last legs, sort of.
01:20He's very corrupt, he barely leaves his residence, he doesn't travel far and wide
01:27throughout his realm.
01:28He sits like an aging emperor on his throne with only the authority bestowed on him by
01:33the fact that the U.S. and some of its allies continue to officially recognize him as the
01:39titular head of the Palestinian Authority, and by extension, the representative of the
01:44Palestinian people, although most Palestinians wouldn't make that connect-the-dot extension.
01:49So like I said, it was a vigorous speech where, yeah, there was nothing tremendously new about
01:54it.
01:55He gave a speech last year, 2023, many of the same denunciations of the obstructionism,
02:01as he sees it, by the U.S., obstructing, you know, well, this year he's talking about obviously
02:06ceasefires in what's been a horrific war, but also denouncing Israel, the lies of the
02:12Israeli prime minister, as he calls them, calling for full membership of his organization,
02:18obviously in the United Nations, and begging, pleading for that two-state, that Palestinian
02:25state coexisting side-by-side with an Israeli state.
02:28But like I said, you know, we captioned this throughout his speech, his words being, stop
02:34this crime, stop it now, stop the genocide, stop sending weapons to Israel.
02:40This has been the refrain throughout the world from the pro-Palestinian protests that we
02:46saw on campuses, on the streets of those who were supporting Palestine, basically calling
02:52it a genocide, calling for powers such as the U.S. and its allies to stop supporting
02:57this war, as they see it, by supplying weapons to Israel.
03:00So you did have, if you knew nothing about Mahmoud Abbas, if you had not been following
03:05the dynamics of this conflict and the leadership and the split within the Palestinians themselves
03:09between Gaza and Hamas and the Palestinian Authority based in the West Bank, if you knew
03:14nothing of any of that, you'd say, wow, this is, yes, an aging leader, but a leader who
03:19very much seems very lucid and in command of his message, whether you agree with it
03:23or not.
03:24And this might be a technical point, Doug, but it is worth spelling out in what capacity
03:29Mahmoud Abbas was speaking at the U.N. General Assembly today.
03:33He is the president of the state of Palestine.
03:35That's how he's referred to at the U.N. level.
03:37What does that mean?
03:38Well, what it doesn't mean is that the state of Palestine is not recognized as a state
03:43member of the United Nations.
03:46And that is a big distinction.
03:48What he is allowed to do is he is allowed to sit among the assembly members, the 193-member
03:53General Assembly.
03:55And in the past decade, he has enjoyed, because his status was upgraded, he used to be an
04:01entity.
04:02Before 2012, the state of Palestine, as it's called at the U.N. now, was simply referred
04:07to as an entity that was upgraded to an observer state and then a non-member observer state.
04:13He can't vote at the United Nations, but the fact he's able to sit among the full-fledged
04:19members of that assembly, the fact he is able to take to the podium and have as much time
04:24as all of those members have that prominent global stage from which to pitch his message
04:29to the world, that is something that he can boast about to his people.
04:35And that, you could argue, it is exactly these types of appearances, even if it's an annual
04:40one before the U.N. General Assembly, that gives him the little vestiges, the shreds
04:44of authority that he might have left, even if he's a very diminished figure among the
04:49Palestinian people themselves.
04:50I think last year, a survey showed that 78% of Palestinians want Abbas to resign, to step
04:57down from his job.
04:59And there are those who say that if he were to step foot in Gaza, which is obviously separated
05:03physically, geographically separated from West Bank, where he actually resides and
05:08governs in a limited way, if he were actually step foot in there, he wouldn't survive.
05:12He is a loathed, reviled, hated figure there.
05:16Hamas is the recognized governing authority in Gaza.
05:21And that's been the case since Abbas and the Palestinian Authority were violently ousted
05:26from the Gaza Strip in 2007.
05:29So I would say today, being a non-member observer state, Abbas obviously would love that full
05:35membership, but I don't think he's complaining with the visibility in the forum that he was
05:38given today and that he has been given in recent years as a non-member observer state.