Personally, I wonder, had Abbas' speech not been a part of that now doubly historic day, November 29, whether things would have unfolded differently this past week. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ action at the UN was more than a slap in the face to the Oslo Accords. I think people are ignoring the significance of Abbas’ mendacious words that gave terrible substance, emotion and meaning to the actual UN upgrade of the PA to a non-member observer state.

Abbas' speech totally changed the temperature of the day and animated the UN move to be a hateful one, not a peaceful one. We all knew the Palestinian bid would pass. For better or for worse, I simply accepted it. But when I heard Abbas’ venomous, revisionist-history, Holocaust-grafting hate speech, that got my blood boiling.