Abbas: "Frankly, yes, we are waging diplomatic war against Israel"

Mahmoud Abbas gave a wide-ranging speech on the occasion of the birthday of Mohammed today.

Abbas mentioned the occasional use by Israel's Foreign Ministry of the phrase "diplomatic terrorism" to describe some of the ways that the PA is trying to delegitimize Israel. He said, "I do not understand the meaning of this expression, but, frankly, yes we are waging diplomatic war against Israel for our rights to isolate Israel's policy in our land and delegitimize Israel on our land."

He also complained that Arab nations have never fulfilled their pledges given in years past of money to help "defend Jerusalem." he similarly complained about the many fatwas forbidding Muslims from around the world to visit Jerusalem while Israel controls the city.

Additionally, Abbas said "Today the world recognizes us; we are a state under occupation. All actions taken in our home since 1967 are invalid because the Fourth Geneva Convention says there is no right for a state that occupied another state to create a demographic change or to transfer its population to live in that state."

Of course, the Fourth Geneva Convention says nothing about demographics and was written to prohibit the forceful transfer of citizens to occupied territory; it does not address the voluntary movement of people to their traditional homeland in a disputed area.

Abbas also claimed that getting the UN resolution on non-member state status passed was extraordinarily difficult, although the voting hardly reflects that.