“It is on the table and a solid basis for resolving this long-standing dispute”.
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The diplomats agreed to establish teams to work on economic and security incentives they could offer if the Israelis and Palestinians reached an agreement. Neither Israel nor the Palestinians were invited to the conference, though the objective is to get them to negotiate after the US elections.
F oreign ministers from major powers gathered in Paris on Friday for a conference aimed at putting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process back on the global agenda.
After a meeting that included U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Friday, Kerry told reporters he would possibly be open to holding an global conference later this year with Israeli and Palestinian representatives in attendance, but cautioned that the talks are just getting started, and that such a meeting is far from set in stone.
“The participants… are alarmed that actions on the ground, in particular continued acts of violence and ongoing settlement activity, are dangerously imperilling the prospects for a two-state solution”, read the statement.
The head of Israel’s foreign ministry Dore Gold said that France’s bid to revive Israel-Palestinian peace talks was doomed to failure, comparing it to the 1916 colonial move to redraw Middle Eastern boundaries after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
Israel will also allow 300 Palestinians living overseas to visit relatives in Gaza, and 500 West Bank Palestinians would be permitted to travel out of Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport.
The reports were issued against a backdrop of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in a deep freeze and a recently appointed Israeli defense minister who is an outspoken skeptic of peace efforts. Netanyahu has been against the French approach and he stated ahead of the Paris conference that “the path to peace does not pass though global committees that are trying to coerce an agreement, radicalize Palestinian demands and in doing so, distance peace”.
Representatives of almost 30 countries, including the United Nations, European Union, and the Arab League attended the meeting to plan for the French Initiative expected to be held by the end of the year.
While prospects for a breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks seem dim at the moment, the attitude of the parties could change and provide an opening at a future point.
“As a peace activist in the non-violent movement, of course I want to see leaders getting together [to discuss peace], but I don’t see an worldwide, regional momentum for a real change here”, said Khatib, a member of Combatants for Peace, a group of Israelis and Palestinians founded by former soldiers and political prisoners.
He said he would call both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas to brief them on the meeting. They were coordinated by the nonpartisan U.S.-based Israel Policy Forum which advocates for a two-state solution and is campaigning in the U.S.to promote them.
According to diplomatic sources, the French conference will seek to focus on a 2002 Saudi-led peace initiative.
“We’re not bringing any specific proposals to this meeting tomorrow”, a senior State Department official was quoted as saying.
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.
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Failure to engage with this could result in Israel being subjected to the sort of worldwide opprobrium that some will recall when apartheid South Africa was one of its few friends in the world.
