Separately, Kerry will meet with French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault to discuss issues including combating Islamic State terrorists.
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The Israeli-Palestinian peace conference scheduled to begin in France on Friday may be successful if it leads to direct negotiations between the two sides, but will be a failure if it merely encourages the Palestinians to hold out for the “vain hope of an imposed solution”, a former senior Israeli official said Thursday.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who told Reuters his attendance was “only to listen to ideas”, and UN General-Secretary Ban Ki-moon joined Hollande at the conference along with representatives from the European Union, the Arab League and key countries in the region such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
France will Friday host talks on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that have received a chilly response from Washington, but diplomats say merely swinging the spotlight back onto the stalemate is a victory.
We negotiated bilaterally with Israel, the occupying power, for over two decades, but they continue to violate all the agreements that we had signed.
“If the global 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”. “They 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”, the communique said. Palestinian attacks have killed 28 Israelis and two Americans since September.
In his opening remarks, Holland allowed that “we can not substitute for the parties”.
Prior to the talks the Israeli government rejected the French peace initiative, instead inviting Palestinian Preisdent Mahmoud Abbas for one-on-one talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
French President Hollande said at the start of the meeting that the “regional upheaval” in the Middle East has made finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict even more urgent, and stressed that peace talks must consider the needs of the entire region.
A senior French diplomat told Reuters the goal was “to get Israelis and Palestinians back together after the USA elections” in November 2016.
“How can you convince Palestinians that the land that would be their state is being eaten up, stolen for settlements”, he said, adding that the Paris meeting “produces an opportunity” for peace. It warned that the status quo – a lack of headway towards a Palestinian state in territory occupied by Israel since the 1967 Middle East war – was not sustainable.
Previous attempts to coax the foes into a deal have been fruitless.
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.
More than 25 foreign ministers mostly from Western and Arab countries are meeting in Paris to revive talks to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the absence of the two conflicting parties. Israel blames the bloodshed on incitement by Palestinian leaders and media.
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Sachs noted that the Israelis rejected the idea of an worldwide conference because it was viewed as one that is intent on imposing a solution upon them. The initiative presents the first large-scale effort to revive the peace process since direct US-mediated talks broke down in 2014.
