Hollande stresses primacy of two-state solution at Paris peace meeting

While direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians seem unlikely anytime soon, Kerry said recently “in the end, the parties have to negotiate”, adding “what we are seeking to do is help encourage the parties to be able to see a way forward so that they can understand that peace is indeed a possibility”.

The US level of representation has not been determined yet, however, it is possible that Secretary of State John Kerry will arrive come to attend the conference.

Israelis and Palestinians were noticeably absent, as foreign ministers from 29 countries met in Paris to discuss the Mideast peace process.

The diplomats agreed to establish teams to work on economic and security incentives they could offer if the Israelis and Palestinians reached an agreement.

France has grown frustrated over the absence of movement towards a “two-state solution” since the collapse of the last round of talks in April 2014.

“We’re never going to abandon efforts to bring about a two-state solution”.

In a paper (.pdf) published earlier this week for the BESA Center, Lerman fleshed out numerous ideas he presented in the conference call, explaining that Israel has a “newly discovered sense of being a significant regional player rather than a besieged small state in a hostile sea”.

Changes that have swept the Middle East mean that past efforts for peace between Israelis and Palestinians are no longer as relevant, and major powers must play a key role in resolving the crisis, French President Francois Hollande said on Friday.

“[Netanyahu] is trying to go around the French initiative to try to create a competing initiative to it”, Nabil Shaath, a senior aide to the Palestinian Authority president, told the Wall Street Journal.

Israel continues to build settlements in the occupied West Bank, and Palestinians have taken to low-grade attacks on Israeli security officials – usually in the form of knife attacks that often result in the attacker being shot dead by security officers. He told the gathering that their initiative aims at giving them guarantees that the peace will be solid, sustainable and under global supervision.

The plan was largely ignored by Israel at the time, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week he would be open to re-negotiating aspects of it with the Palestinians.

It also calls for a non-militarized Palestinian security force, a small highly trained Palestinian counterterrorism unit, a joint Israeli-Palestinian operations centre, and a long-term US commitment to the security of both countries and their neighbours. The Palestinians, along with much of the worldwide community, have accused Netanyahu of undermining peace talks by continued construction in east Yerushalayim and in the Jewish communities in Yehudah and Shomron.

In his opening remarks, Holland allowed that “we can not substitute for the parties”.

Israel has said that the French initiative to restart peace talks between Israel and Palestine is “doomed to fail.’ Dore Gold, director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry compared the French initiative to the unsuccessful 1916 colonial effort to carve up the Middle East. He said Israel prefers a ‘regional initiative” that would include Arab states.

Al Jazeera’s Neave Barker, reporting from Paris, said there was a tremendous drive by France to revive of the peace process.

Mr Netanyahu’s comments on the peace initiative were made in English in a speech that was mostly in Hebrew, and his office distributed them to foreign journalists in Israel, describing them as “important messages”.