By David Singer —— Bio and Archives December 16, 2016
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"France has launched a two-phase initiative. A ministerial meeting, first, took place in Paris on June 3rd 2016, without the Israelis and Palestinians, in order to reaffirm the international community's commitment to the two-State solution. At that meeting, the main international actors expressed their willingness to create a framework and incentives so that credible negotiations can resume. An international conference, to which all parties will be invited, will be organized in the second half of 2016 for this purpose."Surely it would have been much easier--and certainly much cheaper and more effective - for France to pick up the phone and invite both Israel and the PLO to Paris to sit down and resume their negotiations--stalled since 2014 - without pre-conditions and outside foreign interference. Israel's Prime Minister--Benjamin Netanyahu - had publicly expressed his readiness to do so on many occasions--but PLO Chairman--Mahmoud Abbas--refused to indicate his willingness to do likewise.
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke, by telephone, with French President Francois Hollande a short while ago today and told him that if there is no international conference in Paris, he would come to meet with Abu Mazen for direct talks without preconditions. Israel will not attend an international conference, which will not contribute to achieving peace."France has the undoubted diplomatic and economic clout to influence Abbas - as the French Foreign Office acknowledges:
"France is an active contributor to Palestine's economic development and the consolidation of the institutions of the future Palestinian State. It devotes considerable sums (close to €400 million for the period 2008-2014, and ‚Ǩ40 million in 2015) to aid for Palestine, about a third of which is destined for Gaza. Palestine remains the leading beneficiary of French budgetary assistance."Why France's President Hollande allows Abbas to humiliate France by refusing to take up Netanyahu's offer is a mystery. France's foreign policy itself is a pure flight of fancy - declaring:
"France considers that the conflict will only be resolved through the creation of a viable and democratic independent Palestinian State, living in peace and security alongside Israel."The idea that any Palestinian State will ever be democratic is as fanciful as France's belief that its planned international conference could ever succeed. There are solutions--other than the two-State solution - to end the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict. Perhaps it is time France turned its attention to investigating alternative solutions - rather than pushing for a solution whose use by date has surely expired since first being proposed in 1993.
David Singer is an Australian Lawyer, a Foundation Member of the International Analyst Network and Convenor of Jordan is Palestine International—an organization calling for sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza to be allocated between Israel and Jordan as the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine. Previous articles written by him can be found at: jordanispalestine.blogspot.com