PA President Mahmoud Abbas addressing the UN General Assembly. Photo: UN.

JNS.org – Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas said Monday that the Palestinians will seek full membership in the United Nations and join dozens of additional international organizations in response to the recent US policy changes on Jerusalem. The Israeli government opposes unilateral Palestinian attempts to join international bodies outside of the context of a final status agreement between the parties.

Abbas’s comments, which came during a meeting of senior Palestinian officials in Ramallah, echoed threats the PA leader issued last week during an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation conference in Istanbul.

“There are no borders to Israel, and international law is against any recognition of it….We will go once again and many times to get full [UN] membership,” Abbas said Monday. “We are a state and an authority, and we have borders and we have the right to get the world’s recognition of us.”

The Palestinians, he said, “have to take legal, political and diplomatic measures. The US has chosen not to be a mediator for the peace process. We reject it as mediator. The US is with Israel and supports and backs it.”

Abbas threatened that the Palestinians would apply for membership in all 522 official international organizations, beginning with 22 that would be announced on Tuesday.