Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas went to the United Nations to sell his peace agenda to diplomats from around the world.  His address was widely anticipated as the latest Palestinian move toward statehood. But when he rose at the rostrum of the General Assembly, Abbas did not deliver anything resembling a rational, sensible two-state solution.  Far from it. Abbas’s speech instead was devoted almost entirely to a barrage of vicious slanders against Israel – a torrent of bad-mouthing attacks against the Jewish state. Israel, he told the delegates, is a “colonial occupying power preparing for a new Nakba" (Palestinian catastrophe). But that was just for starters. Abbas went on to accuse Israel of “genocidal crimes – war crimes carried out before our eyes.” Retribution, he declared, was inevitable – “we will not allow war criminals to escape punishment.” Israeli policies, he remarked, are based on...(Read Full Post)