Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, takes his case for Palestinian statehood to the United Nations this week. It’s a matter of basic justice, Abbas will argue. He will claim that the Palestinian people were dispossessed by the new state of Israel in 1948, which is still preventing the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

But Abbas’ claim is based on a big lie, and justice cannot be built on a foundation of lies. Not only does Abbas lie about the origins of the conflict, but he has lately been lying about his own life story as one of those “dispossessed” Palestinians.