By the Associated Press
Posted:
01\/15\/17, 8:10 AM PST | Updated: 12 secs ago
PARIS >> Fearing a new eruption of violence in the Middle East, more than 70 world diplomats gathered in Paris on Sunday to push for renewed peace talks that would lead to a Palestinian state.
The conference is meant to be a forceful message to U. S. President-elect Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that much of the world wants peace and sees a two-state solution as the best way to achieve it in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
\u201cA two-state solution is the only possible one,\u201d French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said in opening the conference, calling it \u201cmore indispensable than ever\u201d to solve the protracted conflict.
Netanyahu has snubbed Sunday\u2019s conference as \u201crigged\u201d against Israel, and Trump\u2019s incoming administration isn\u2019t taking part.
The gathering is an \u201cempty summit\u201d that was cooked up behind Israel\u2019s back and is designed to force conditions on the country that are against its national interests, Netanyahu said.
French diplomats fear Trump will unleash new tensions in the region by condoning settlements on land claimed by the Palestinians and potentially moving the U. S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to contested Jerusalem.
\u201cBoth parties are very far apart and their relationship is one of distrust \u2014 a particularly dangerous situation,\u201d Ayrault said at the conference. \u201cOur collective responsibility is to bring Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table. We know it is difficult, but is there an alternative? No, there isn\u2019t.\u201d
U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry is in Paris defending American interests at the conference, in his last major diplomatic foray before he leaves office. It marks the end of eight years of failed U. S. efforts at Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy.
Netanyahu declined an invitation to a special meeting after the conference, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was initially expected, but his visit to Paris was postponed.
The Israeli prime minister said the gathering would do little to promote peace and marks the \u201clast flutters of yesterday\u2019s world.\u201d
\u201cTomorrow will look different and tomorrow is very close,\u201d he said in apparent reference to Trump\u2019s incoming administration.
According to a draft statement obtained by The Associated Press on Friday, the conference will urge Israel and the Palestinians \u201cto officially restate their commitment to the two-state solution.\u201d
It also will affirm that the international community \u201cwill not recognize\u201d changes to Israel\u2019s pre-1967 lines without agreement by both sides.
The final conference declaration also may warn Trump against moving the embassy, a move that could be seen as recognizing Jerusalem as Israel\u2019s capital after decades of insisting that the city\u2019s status must be determined by direct negotiations.
Israeli and Palestinian leaders have not negotiated even indirectly since a failed U. S.-led peace effort in 2014.
While the conference was underway, a few hundred pro-Israel demonstrators, waving Israeli flags and placards denouncing the summit, gathered outside Israel\u2019s embassy in Paris.
\u201cThe Palestinians and a number of Arab states have not expressed a will for peace,\u201d Serge Klarsfeld, a well-known famous French Nazi hunter, said. \u201cIf it existed and if the Arab world recognized the existence of Israel, we would find the means to solve all the problems very quickly.\u201d
The demonstrators loudly booed French lawmaker Pierre Lellouche when he took the podium and declared himself in favor of a \u201ctwo-state solution\u201d and the halting of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories.
Ariel Goldmann, president of the French Jewish association Fonds Social Juif Unifi\u00e9, called the gathering a \u201cmockery of dialogue, a mockery of peace, a historical mockery.\u201d Goldmann said he was \u201csad that France is lending itself to such a maneuver.\u201d
Aron Heller in Jerusalem, and Philippe Sotto and Alex Turnbull in Paris contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

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