Netanyahu lashes Abbas during dinner with Kerry

During Monday UN speech, prime minister reportedly plans ‘razor-sharp’ rebuttal to PA claims of Israeli genocide in Gaza

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu kicked off his offensive against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s UN address, bringing his criticisms to US Secretary of State John Kerry during a dinner meeting Sunday.

The two met in New York shortly after Netanyahu arrived ahead of his own UN address Monday evening, during which he is expected to counter Abbas’s claims that Israeli committed “genocide” against Gazans during this summer’s 50-day Israel-Hamas war.

Netanyahu expressed his outrage to Kerry, according to a senior Israeli official cited by Haaretz on Monday.

The Israeli prime minister plans to deliver a “razor-sharp” response, according to Israeli media, during his own address to the UN, scheduled for Monday afternoon.

Abbas’s Friday speech was condemned by Israeli and US officials. One official from Netanyahu’s office accused Abbas of incitement.

In his address, Abbas accused Israel of committing genocide in its recent conflict with the Hamas terror group, rulers of the Gaza Strip — calling 2014 “a year of a new war of genocide perpetrated against the Palestinian people” — and said that Israel was not interested in living in peace with its Palestinian neighbors.

Before leaving for New York Sunday, Netanyahu told reporters he would “refute all the lies being directed against us, and I will tell the truth about our country and the heroic soldiers of the IDF, the most moral army in the world.”

“It’s a speech of incitement full of lies,” an unnamed source from the Prime Minister’s Office told the Hebrew press after Abbas’s speech. “That’s not how someone who wants peace speaks.”

While in the US, Netanyahu is also slated to meet with US President Barack Obama.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, who also arrived in New York Sunday, said in a statement shortly after Abbas’s speech that the PA president demonstrated that “he doesn’t want to be, and cannot be, a partner for a logical diplomatic resolution.”

“It’s no coincidence that he joined a [national consensus] government with Hamas,” the foreign minister added. “Abbas complements Hamas when he deals with diplomatic terrorism and slanders Israel with false accusations.”