by Barak Ravid
Half an hour before Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas went up to the podium at the UN General Assembly, Salva Kiir, president of the world's youngest country, South Sudan, was giving his own speech. As he went on, a slow buzz began to spread throughout the hall.
World leaders, foreign ministers and ambassadors came in one after the other and filled the empty spots in the auditorium. The seats reserved for guests and journalists were also quickly taken. When Kiir finished his speech, everyone expected Abbas to speak next, but due to a change in the schedule the president of Armenia ascended the stage. The large crowd of people impatiently anticipating the day's main event heaved a communal grunt of dissatisfaction over the unexpected warm-up show.
Had a stranger stumbled into the General Assembly on Friday, they might have thought Lady Gaga – or at least Madonna – was about to perform, and not the somber Abbas. Dozens of people who couldn't find a seat stood along the walls of the hall, while others sat down on the stairs. When Abbas' name was announced, the crowd rose to its feet and received him with applause befitting nothing less than a rock star.
Abbas' speech was unrelenting. A few of the things he said would even make Yossi Beilin or Shimon Peres cringe. When he talked about Palestine as a land holy to several religions, he mentioned Muslims and Christians, but failed to mention the Jews. He spoke of Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in East Jerusalem and said that the IDF and settlers abuse farmers and sick people on their way to the hospital.
Yet all of this did not prevent the majority of the representatives in the hall to applaud Abbas, and even give him a standing ovation when he waved a copy of the letter he submitted earlier to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon requesting membership to the UN. When Abbas yelled over the podium "enough, enough, enough," the representatives of the world's nations believed him.
Israel's handling of the Palestinian bid reached an especially embarrassing peak during Abbas' speech. Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who entered the hall a few minutes before the speech began, decided once again to use an international diplomatic event for a little bit of internal politics.
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