Palestinian president addresses UN on prerecorded video after visa denied

Open this photo in gallery:Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks via pre-recorded video during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday.Seth Wenig/The Associated PressPalestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, delivering prerecorded remarks from his office in Ramallah after the United States denied him and other top Palestinian officials visas to attend the gathering for the second year in a row.“The Palestinian people face one of the most dangerous times in its history,” Abbas said, citing long-term military occupation in the West Bank and the war in Gaza. Israel, he said, “has targeted all of the basic necessities of life.”Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to speak in person early in the afternoon.Trump’s Board of Peace pitches $2.45-billion Gaza plan, implementation uncertainSince 2005, the now-90-year-old Abbas has led the Palestinian Authority, which is the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people. But his support among Palestinians has withered during years of corruption and the sometimes violent advance of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.Under Abbas, Palestine has been recognized as a country by a majority of U.N. member states. But on the ground in the West Bank, the mostly symbolic moves have not affected Israel’s decades long military occupation. Throughout the war in Gaza, Abbas and the authority have been largely sidelined from negotiations over its future in favor of a transition process shepherded by President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace.The Palestinian Authority was created under a series of peace agreements with Israel in the 1990s and administers semiautonomous areas of the West Bank, while relying heavily on foreign aid. It is the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people. It was ousted from Gaza after Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006 and violently seized control. Abbas was elected to what was supposed to be a four-year term in 2005. The authority has not held presidential or legislative elections since 2006.Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 war, and the Palestinians want both as part of their future state. The Palestinians and much of the international community view the settlements as illegal and as an obstacle to creating a viable, contiguous Palestinian state.Abbas recorded the video on Wednesday.