BEIRUT: The address by Israel’s prime minister to the U.N. General Assembly was replete with contempt and hatred, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said Saturday, a day after Hezbollah accused the U.S. of displaying unbiased support to the Jewish state against the recognition of a Palestinian state.

“We would like to assure [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and whoever is behind him that Lebanon, the defiant, which defeated his aggression in south Lebanon, will be defiant at the Security Council, biased toward people’s rights in the face of immorality which you truly represent,” Berri said.

In the statement released Saturday, Berri said that Lebanon’s presidency of the Security Council was reason enough to irritate Netanyahu, adding that Lebanon could use its position as the head of the council to argue the case that Israel “can no longer be a state above the law and accountability.”

The Parliament speaker also slammed Netanyahu for saying the Security Council was under Hezbollah’s control.

“Who presides over the Security Council today is not Hezbollah, or President Michel Sleiman or the prime minister; it is the Lebanon that witnessed the 1996 massacre …. in Qana by Netanyahu,” Berri said, referring to the incident in the southern village of Qana in 1996 where Israeli artillery fired killed some 101 civilians at a U.N. compound.

“Lebanon presides over the U.N. on behalf of the Arabs to protect their rights,” Berri added.

Berry’s statement comes a day after the United States and Israel repeated their opposition to attempts by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to secure U.N. recognition of a Palestinian State.

Abbas submitted his request for U.N. recognition Friday.

President Barack Obama’s statement on the issue drew strong criticism from Hezbollah late Friday.

In a statement, the resistance group said the American leader’s statement reflected complete bias toward the Jewish state, which strongly opposes the bid by Abbas.

“It was not surprising to [hear] the absolute bias toward the Zionist entity [Israel] in U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech to the United Nations [General Assembly] which included a threat to veto efforts by the Palestinian Authority to announce the establishment of a Palestinian state,” the group said in a statement.

Addressing the annual meeting of the General Assembly in New York Wednesday, Obama forcefully defended his opposition to the Palestinians’ plan to seek statehood recognition from the U.N. Security Council, though without directly calling on the Palestinians to drop the bid, or offering a clear path forward in its place.

The United States has vowed to veto the bid by Abbas at the Security Council, which will meet Monday afternoon to discuss the request.

In its statement late Friday, Hezbollah said Obama’s remarks reflected his administration’s true stance toward the Arab revolutions, “because the position on the Palestinian issue and the rights of the deprived Palestinian people is the real test for all those who call for democracy and justice.

“When the person(s) fails to be on the side of these rights, they naturally place themselves among the ranks of the oppressors … of the rights of peoples wherever they may be in the world.”

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri also responded to Netanyahu’s speech which he described as “full of contempt and hatred,” saying: “We would like to assure Netanyahu and whoever is behind him that Lebanon, the defiant, which defeated his aggression in south Lebanon will be defiant at the Security Council, biased toward people's rights in the face of immorality which you truly represent.”

In a statement released Saturday, Berri said that Lebanon’s presidency over the Security Council was enough to irritate Netanyahu, adding that such presidency is an opportunity for the U.N. to recognize that Israel “can no longer be a state above the law and accountability.”