By Alaa Rimawi

JERUSALEM

Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog criticized a speech made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the United Nations on Friday, saying it was disappointing and full of lies.

However, Herzog, leader of the leftist Labor party, said that Abbas and his Palestinian Authority (PA) are still better than Hamas to deal with.

“I totally reject what he is saying, but I do not forget the Israeli interest, so it is important to remember that it is better for Israel to deal with the PA in Gaza and not Hamas and continue our security cooperation in” the West Bank, Herzog  was quoted by The Jerusalem Post as saying.

In his speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Abbas called for a resolution on a timetable for ending the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders.

The roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict date back to 1917, when the British government, in the now-famous "Balfour Declaration," called for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."

In 1948, some 700,000 Palestinians fled their homes – or were forcibly expelled by Jewish forces – after the creation of the new state of Israel, while hundreds of Palestinian villages and towns were razed to the ground.

Israel then occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Jewish state – a move never recognized by the international community.

Palestinians, for their part, continue to demand the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, with East Jerusalem – currently occupied by Israel – as its capital.

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