United Nations ? Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Friday that his government was completely committed to a U.S.-proposed Mideast peace conference and vowed that the “olive branch of peace” would not fall from his hands.

His impassioned speech to the U.N. General Assembly recalled the famous address to the same forum in 1974 by his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, who appeared wearing a holster and carrying a sprig. Arafat told the assembled leaders that he carried both the olive branch and “the freedom fighter’s gun,” and implored the world not to let that branch fall.

Abbas, who wore a business suit, pledged that the “olive branch of peace that never withers or dies, will not fall from my hands.”