Netanyahu, Abbas UN speeches by the numbers

In their speeches to the UN General Assembly on Friday night, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas spoke of racist colonialist occupation and settlements; while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of security and peace.

Looking at their words, and their body language, I think that:

Abbas is spitting fire, angry, and is proud of himself for presenting Palestine’s request to join the community of nations. But he failed to give his people a state. He mentioned Yasser Arafat, and many delegates in the hall applauded. Bunch of idiots. And here’s what he thinks about the demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state

Abbas:

we now face the imposition new conditions not previously raised, conditions that will transform the raging conflict in our inflamed region into a religious conflict

Abbas asked for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, and said:

The PLO and the Palestinian people adhere to the renouncement of violence and rejection and condemning of terrorism in all its forms,

Except that in reality, Abbas is not in control of the Gaza Strip, and the ‘people’ there, Hamas, don’t renounce violence. So he does not speak for them. Even they’ll tell you that.

Netanyahu, overconfident, patronizing, is proud of himself for thwarting the creation of a Palestinian state at the Security Council. But his people don’t have peace.

Netanyahu smoothed over this inaccuracy:

We left Gaza hoping for peace….we gave the keys of Gaza to President Abbas.

Rubbish. Abbas told Sharon not to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza because Hamas would portray it as their kicking the Israelis out. Which is what they did. Israel didn’t give the keys of Gaza to Abbas, Israel threw the keys over the gate and into the hands of Hamas.

Both leaders said things that were true, from their perspective, and both delivered half-truths. [Abbas: Palestinians are armed only with their dreams...]

That’s it in a nutshell. The sides are further apart now than ever and heading into the unknown. Sad. Frustrating.

Here’s a breakdown of the words each speaker used most, courtesy of TagCrowd:

Abbas full speech

Netanyahu full speech