Live updates: UN General Assembly votes to recognize Israeli state.
Updated Tuesday at 5:59 p.m. ET
The United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly voted Wednesday morning to recognize Israel’s statehood.
Just after one hour after the measure passed, Palestinian groups and world leaders condemned Israel’s decision.
Palestinians will no longer have the right to vote at UN.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s government said the UN move “underscores the fallacy of the Palestinian claim that it has the right to establish an independent state in the heart of historic Palestine” and “a threat to the security of Israel and the West.”
Israel had said that the UN move would serve as a “Trojan Horse” for establishing a Palestinian state.
“I hope that the UN body understands this decision and will retract it,” said Netanyahu, saying that it was a response to the Palestinians’ “hostile attitude” toward Israel.
In an attempt to counter the UN’s vote, Abbas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday called for a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In the nearly 40-minute speech in New York, Abbas said “Israel was created by God himself, but Israel has harmed the land of his covenant and trampled on its people’s rights.”
Israel responded by claiming that Palestinian leaders “ignore their obligations and responsibilities to the world’s largest human rights organization.”
In the same speech, Abbas also said that the Palestinians won’t attend future Israel-UN summits and that Israeli government has prevented Palestinian members of the Interim Agreement on Pre-1967 Lines, or IAP, from attending those meetings.
The Palestinian president said the Palestinians will hold their own summit next month in Ramallah.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who was expected to try to quell the controversy surrounding Wednesday’s vote, expressed grave concern over what he said
