US Envoy: Abbas Lacks What is Needed to Achieve Peace

“Where is the Palestinian Anwar Sadat? If President Abbas demonstrates he can be that type of leader, we would welcome it. His recent actions demonstrate the total opposite,” Haley said.

By: United with Israel Staff

US Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Nikki Haley assailed Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas Thursday, saying he lacks the courage and will to seek peace with Israel.

Addressing a regular Security UN Security Council (UNSC) debate on the Middle East, Haley said that “the indispensable element [for peace] is leaders who have the will to do what’s needed to achieve peace.”

“Real peace requires leaders who are willing to step forward, acknowledge hard truth and make compromises,” she said. “It requires leaders who look to the future, rather than dwell on past resentments. Above all, such leaders require courage.”

She praised late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, who signed a peace treaty with Israel, as such a leader.

“Forty years ago, President Sadat did an exceptional thing. Egypt and Israel were still in a state of war. In fact, Sadat himself had led Egypt in war with Israel only a few years before. But Sadat made the courageous decision to pursue peace. And when he made that decision, he went to Jerusalem and delivered a speech before the Israeli Knesset. That he went to the Knesset was courageous in itself,” she recounted.

“But what took real courage was what he said there,” Haley stated. “He said the words that both he and the world knew marked a turning point. He said to the Israeli legislators, ‘You want to live with us in this part of the world. In all sincerity, I tell you, we welcome you among us, with full security and safety.'”

She then turned to Abbas and said, “Compare those words to what Palestinian President Abbas said to the PLO Central Council 11 days ago.”

In his speech, Abbas declared the Oslo Peace Accords dead, rejected any American role in peace talks, called for suspending recognition of Israel and cursed President Donald Trump.

“He invoked an ugly and fictional past, reaching back to the 17th century to paint Israel as a colonialist project engineered by European powers,” Haley declared. “A speech that indulges in outrageous and discredited conspiracy theories is not the speech of a person with the courage and the will to seek peace.”

“I ask here today…Where is the Palestinian Anwar Sadat? If President Abbas demonstrates he can be that type of leader, we would welcome it. His recent actions demonstrate the total opposite,” she underscored.

While the US “remains deeply committed to helping the Israelis and the Palestinians reach a historic peace agreement that brings a better future to both peoples,” it will not “chase after a Palestinian leadership that lacks what is needed to achieve peace.”

“To get historic results, we need courageous leaders. History has provided such leaders in the past. For the sake of the Palestinian and Israeli people, we pray it does so again,” Haley concluded.