French President Francois Hollande and his Foreign Affairs minister Jean Marc Ayrault, left, arrive to attend an worldwide meeting in a bid to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in Paris, France, Friday, June 2, 2016.
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Israel, which wasn’t invited along with the Palestinians to the 26-country session, said the French initiative would fail because it aimed to impose a settlement.
At a press conference, European Union Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini reiterated the importance of Arab state involvement in negotiations and said the summit was not meant to force concessions from the two sides but rather to create an global framework to relaunch peace talks.
If ever there was a time when the protracted occupation of Palestinian territories, and the conflict that flows from it, had tested the patience of world powers to the limit then the conference in Paris has just driven home that this is it.
Ayrault, who hosted an worldwide meeting in Paris in a bid to revive the moribund peace process, said that a solution which would see Israelis and Palestinians living side by side was “getting further away each day”.
“If the worldwide community comes together and says the two-state solution is the only option, that is important in itself?- after years of people talking about the two-state solution being dead”.
“We are ready to contribute to this new dynamic towards a just and long-lasting peace … which is based on a negotiated two-state solution”, he declared at the opening of an worldwide conference in Paris on Friday.
The meeting was embraced by Palestinians, who have sought to internationalize negotiations in part because they don’t trust the United States to act as a neutral mediator and consider the Europeans more sympathetic to their aspirations.
For decades, the US has been the lead mediator for peace, and though France’s decision to host talks doesn’t mean it will take over that mantle, it is seen by the Palestinians as a step toward having a more neutral government at the forefront of the talks. With the impending elections being the focus for Washington, France hoped to steer the process instead.
Speaking after the meeting, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Adel Al Jubeir, rejected this idea, saying the Arab peace initiative already contained “all the elements for a final settlement”. Israeli and Palestinian representatives were absent.
Some groups would strive to create economic incentives and security guarantees to convince both sides to return to talks.
“The multilateral approach of the French Initiative is needed in order to provide us with a clear mechanism of implementation and monitoring”, he said.
According to Israeli officials, Netanyahu spoke with Kerry on Thursday, as well as a number of foreign ministers on Friday in an effort to thwart the initiative.
The gathering of ministers, without Israelis or Palestinians attending, is planned to clear the way for an worldwide conference to set new parameters for negotiating a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
In private, European officials have been warning Israel’s government that it risks being defined as “an apartheid state” after almost 50 years in occupation on the West Bank and the ongoing siege of the Gaza Strip.
“If Israel is allowed to continue its colonization and apartheid policies in Occupied Palestine, the future will be for more extremism and bloodshed rather than for coexistence and peace”, he said in a statement.
Francois Hollande, the French President, called an worldwide conference of the Arab League, 20 other countries and various global figures to his capital to discuss one last throw of the diplomatic dice.
“The status quo isn’t sustainable”, Dion said during a teleconference from Paris on Friday.
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“We should not raise expectations now”, said Saeb Erekat, an aide to Abbas.
