Hollande said in his opening remarks that the French initiative has one goal – to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
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“The Arab peace initiative has all the elements for a final settlement”, he told journalists after the conference.
“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.
“It is on the table and a solid basis for resolving this long-standing dispute”.
The gathering agreed to set up teams by the end of the month to work on economic and security incentives for the Israelis and Palestinians for reaching a deal, said French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault.
“We reject the French initiative and all attempts to resume futile negotiations [with Israel], which have only led to the construction of more [Jewish-only] settlements [on occupied Palestinian land] and provided political cover for the ongoing Judaization of Jerusalem”, the joint statement read.
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 worldwide framework to relaunch peace talks.
He repeated France’s wish to organise an worldwide conference, with both the Israelis and the Palestinians, before the end of the year.
And the top USA diplomat appears as determined as ever, despite the dwindling months remaining in the current administration, as he prepares to attend the ministerial meeting Friday in Paris, where the resumption of talks aimed at ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the focus.
Dore Gold, the director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, predicted on Thursday that the Paris conference will “completely fail” and added that the “only way to make peace” is through direct talks.
“We should not raise expectations now”, said Saeb Erekat, an aide to Abbas.
The United States, the traditional mediator in the conflict, has not moved the two sides towards a new peace process since talks collapsed in April 2014.
“Instead of urging Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to answer Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated calls to immediately start direct negotiations without preconditions, the global community submitted to Abbas’ demands and allowed him to continue to evade conducting direct bilateral negotiations without preconditions”.
“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”.
Israeli and Palestinian representatives were not invited to the meeting, according to Ma’an News Agency.
“Of course, we will be prepared to do this, if there is the wish and readiness of the two parties – Israelis and Palestinians – to have a meeting”.
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Friday’s summit came just days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu negotiated a coalition deal that saw ultra-nationalist leader Avigdor Lieberman named as defence minister in a government widely described as the most right-wing in the country’s history. Israel is not an ICC member and has argued that Palestine has no standing to join the court or grant it jurisdiction. As the Reuters piece points out, Israel will face a more hard choice if the prosecutor seeks access to Palestinian territory to conduct interviews.
