Israel and Palestinians clash at UN meeting as tensions rise

By EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Israel’s U.N. ambassador is accusing the Palestinians of stabbing a knife into any chance for reconciliation by seeking an advisory opinion from the U.N.’s highest court on Israel’s decades-old occupation. The Palestinian U.N. envoy is accusing Israel’s new government of seeking to crush its people. The always contentious monthly U.N. Security Council meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was even more vitriolic and threatening on Wednesday. U.N. Mideast envoy Tor Wennesland warned that “Israelis and Palestinians remain on a collision course amid escalating political and inflammatory rhetoric as well as heightened violence in the West Bank — both with potentially grave consequences.”