"UN urged to take action as Palestinians commemorate Nakba anniversary"

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called on the UN to suspend Israel's membership if it does not grant Palestinians a state and a right of return, and denied Jewish ties to the Temple Mount during a speech at UN Headquarters in New York on Monday. Abbas was speaking at the UN General Assembly’s first-ever commemoration of the “Nakba,” Arabic for “catastrophe” and the Palestinian term for Israel’s creation. Israel harshly opposed the event marking the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, calling it a “distortion of history,” and said it had convinced dozens of other countries to boycott the commemoration.