Egypt's Sissi at UN: World Must Guarantee Palestinian State With East Jerusalem as Capital

Egyptian President Abdel-Fatah al-Sissi told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday that Cairo is committed to the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

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"We cannot talk about the peaceful settlement of disputes as a founding principle of the United Nations and an indicator of its credibility without addressing the Palestinian cause," Sissi said. "It stands as a perfect example of the failure of the international system to find this just resolution to the conflict based on international legitimacy and United Nations resolutions that guarantee the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital."

Sissi added that the parameters of a resolution to the Palestinian issue are well-known and that "what is required is political will to resume negotiations and achieve a settlement in accordance with these parameters."

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Sissi's remarks followed comments by Jordanian King Abdullah II, whose said that only a two-state solution "based on international law and relevant UN resolutions can meet the needs of both sides: an end to conflict, a viable, independent, sovereign Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, and a secure Israel, fully part of its own region, recognized by Arab and Muslim states around the world."

Abdullah emphasized that he saw no alternative, asking: "How can we accept a status quo of continuing crisis and bigotry? Palestinian families displaced for generations, their children’s very identity denied. Israeli families, living in continuing national self-isolation; without the security of peaceful relationships worldwide."

The Jordanian king also rejected the notion of a one-state solution. "And what could possibly be the future of what some propose: a single, bi-national state, whose very foundation is a rejection of the equality of its own people?" He asked. "That’s the ugly, undemocratic reality of the one-state idea. It is by no means an alternative to a two-state peace settlement, it is an abandonment of peace, a new way to go AWOL from the work of reconciliation, and the opposite of what both sides need, and have sought for so long.