More than 70 countries, including the permanent members of the UN Security Council, European Union and Arab League, gathered in Paris yesterday for an international conference aimed at seeking ways to re-started the long-stalled peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. At his opening remarks, French President Francois Hollande stressed that the summit was “a warning”, that the aspired international solution of two-state, to the decades-old conflict, appears to be threatened. “The initiative launched by France that you all fully agreed with was first of all a warning. Because the two-state solution, the one upon which the international community agreed, and this for several years, appears threatened. Threatened in the field by increasing settlement and threatened politically because of the progressive weakening of those who are in the favor of peace. It is threatened also morally because of the increasing distrust between the two parties that extremists use for their own purposes,” said Hollande
President Hollande asserted that those who claim that advancing peace between Israel and the Palestinians amid chaos that plagues the Middle East does not understand the importance of securing a solution between the two sides for the sake of regional stability. “I know what was said of this conference, that it is naïve… ‘how could we possibly imagine thinking about peace today when the Middle East is falling apart?’, it was even said that this was pointless and we were just adding very little to international relations by holding this conference here. Well I can tell you now and here that it would be very naive to believe that bringing together Israel and its neighbors – something so necessary – wouldn’t be possible without moving toward peace,” added Hollande. The concluding statement from the one day conference urges both Israel and the Palestinians to restate their commitment to the two-state solution and disavow officials who reject it. It further demands both sides to “refrain from unilateral steps that prejudge the outcome of final status negotiations”.