Israel accuses Abbas of seeking to excise Israel due to key-shaped pin in UN speech

25 September 2025, 12:57 am

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This handout picture provided by the Palestinian Authority's press office shows Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas applauding as he gives a video address to a UN summit on a two-state solution in New York City, from his headquarters in Ramallah on September 22, 2025. (Thaer GHANAIM / PPO / AFP)

The Foreign Ministry accuses Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of seeking to erase Israel, noticing a pin in the shape of a key seen on his lapel when he addressed a UN conference by video on Monday.

In a post on X, the ministry calls the pin “an unmistakable symbol of his goal of erasing Israel,” accusing the Palestinian leader of “dangerous duplicity.”

“While Hamas called the October 7 massacre the ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’, Abbas wants his own flood under the guise of two states: millions of descendants of Arabs who left Israel in 1948 pushed into Israel to erase the only Jewish State,” the ministry writes.

Abbas, in his remarks at the UN two-state solution confab on Monday, condemned Hamas’s October 7 attack, called for the terror group to disarm, recalled Ramallah’s recognition of Israel and condemned antisemitism as he seeks to rally international support for a Palestinian state against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Gaza.

The dangerous duplicity of Mahmoud Abbas. In his speech addressing the UN General Assembly he wore a “key” pin – an unmistakable symbol of his goal of erasing Israel.

While Hamas called the October 7 massacre the “Al-Aqsa Flood”, Abbas wants his own flood under the guise of two… pic.twitter.com/ET1hqIGDfN

— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) September 24, 2025

Descendants of Palestinians who fled or were driven out of their homes during Israel’s 1947-1949 War of Independence sometimes wear or display keys as a symbol of their yearning to return to those homes, with the so-called right of return once seen as a major sticking point in long-moribund efforts to reach an Israeli-Palestinian accommodation.

Israel argues that allowing Palestinians to return would result in an influx that would threaten its character as Jewish and democratic, demanding that the children and grandchildren of those who left no longer be recognized as refugees.

“It is long overdue for Arab states to grant citizenship to the descendants of those who left in 1948,” the ministry writes.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addresses a Nakba Day event at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, May 15, 2023 (Ed Jones/AFP)

Pictures show that Abbas has worn the key pin in nearly every public appearance dating back to May 2023, when the UN marked 75 years since the Nakba, or Catastrophe, the term given by Palestinians to the creation of Israel and the loss of their homes.