“With the support of the worldwide community, the leadership of Israel and Palestine must pull back from the brink by undertaking serious efforts to create the conditions which will enable a return to meaningful negotiations”, said Mr. Ban at a French Ministerial Conference Meeting on the Middle East Peace Process, being held today in Paris, France.
Advertisement
As the Paris conference gets underway, Israel’s Prime Minister is signaling openness to a 14-year-old Saudi peace plan promising normalized Arab state relations with Israel in return for a Palestinian peace deal.
“So let’s try and build from this regional initiative rather than run to Paris and come up with alternatives to direct negotiations”, Gold said.
U.S., European and Arab diplomats are meeting Friday in Paris for a French-led effort to revive the Mideast peace process, despite skepticism from Israel.
However, it will not include representatives from Israel or Palestine. He said the objective was to get Israelis and Palestinians back together after the US elections.
“The French initiative is the flicker of hope Palestine has been waiting for and we are confident that it will provide a clear framework with defined parameters for the resumption of negotiations”, the Palestine Liberation Organisation secretary general wrote.
It would be “impossible”, Lerman said, for an imposed solution to address the specific details of a final peace agreement, such as borders, security arrangements, the status of Jerusalem, and the future of Arab and Jewish refugees.
France’s initiative to revive “peace talks” between Palestinians and Israelis will not produce a just and effective resolution for Palestinians, activists and analysts said. Others would focus on trying to find ways to break deadlocks that scuttled previous negotiations or look at whether other peace efforts such as a 2002 Arab initiative remain viable.
“To argue that the Arab peace initiative should be watered down to accommodate the Israelis is not a wise approach”, he said after the Paris meeting.
Hollande seems to be glossing over sectarian violence in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and beyond, conflicts that do not center around Israel or the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Separately, Kerry will meet with French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault to discuss issues including combating Islamic State terrorists.
The last major conference on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process was hosted by President George W. Bush in 2007 in Annapolis, Maryland. Yesterday, Mr Hollande urged Israel and the Palestinians to make a “courageous choice” for peace.
“Israel’s economy is expected to grow 2.8 percent this year compared with 1.8 percent for the USA and the European Union”.
He said the mobilisation of the global community showed that despite numerous conflicts and the terrorism threat, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remained “at the heart of our concerns”. According to the Times of Israel, “Herzog has claimed that he was prepared to risk his political career to partner with Netanyahu because there was a rare opportunity for regional progress towards peace”, but Netanyahu “ran away” from that opportunity, and “opted instead to turn to the hardline Lieberman”.
Advertisement
Analysts say Palestinian frustration of the deadlock in negotiations has driven a wave of violence which has left 206 Palestinians and 28 Israelis dead since October.
