Messages from Paris for Trump and Bibi
1) Guardian: Paris conference to send Trump a warning over Israel and Palestinians, Patrick Wintour reports French see not a stalemate but ‘a deceptive status quo. Palestinians are seeing their future state shrinking’;
2) Haaretz: Peace Conference Set to Open in Paris, Against Backdrop of Netanyahu, Trump Disapproval, Barak Ravid reveals Trump was opposed to the conference from the moment he heard about it months ago;
3) CNN: Netanyahu: Paris peace conference is ‘useless’, the only quite interesting question is what adjective Bibi will choose when rejecting any move to break the stalemate;
4) Reuters: At Paris meeting, major powers to warn Trump over Middle East peace, written before the event but an interpretation followed by most;
5) AFP: Israel furious as US joins ‘rigged’ Paris peace talks, as Philip Hammond wisely observed of Netanyahu’s response to the Iran deal – no deal would him happy. Also true of Palestine.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault opening the conference on Sunday. Photo by AP.
Paris conference to send Trump a warning over Israel and Palestinians
Meeting to say two-state solution is under threat as Palestinians voice concern about support for settlements in Trump camp. Paris conference is ‘last gasp for breath from yesterday’s world’, says Netanyahu
By Patrick Wintour, Diplomatic editor, The Guardian
January 15, 2017
The international community will send Donald Trump a strong warning that only a two-state solution can solve the Israel-Palestinian crisis, amid signs that the EU is willing to diverge from the US on Israel policy.
A conference in Paris on Sunday of more than 70 countries, organised by the French government and coming five days before Trump is inaugurated, will warn that the two-state solution is under threat and urge both sides in the conflict to resume talks.
It comes as Palestinians expressed concern that Trump advisers endorse the controversial Israeli settlement programme and want to move the US embassy to Jerusalem.
The Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has warned that such a symbolic move could derail the peace process.
Critics have claimed that the conference, the second organised by the French in less than a year, is pointless, since neither Abbas nor the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will be present.
Netanyahu has called the event futile, rigged and “a relic”, saying: “It’s a last gasp of the past before the future sets in.”
The French had at one point hoped the conference might lead to an agreement for Netanyahu and Abbas to meet, but that is off the table.
Instead, Abbas, pleased with the direction of European diplomacy, will meet the French soon after the conference.
In a statement alongside the conference, the French foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, defended the initiative:
For more than six years, the absence of a peace process has given way to a deceptive status quo. Palestinians are seeing their future state shrinking as settlement expansion continues at an unprecedented speed. This, in turn, generates more occupation, since there is never one without the other.
The French say the conference, to be addressed by the president, François Hollande, is not just a vital symbolic show of support for a two-state solution, but a chance to set out practical incentives for peace, including aiding Palestinian capacity-building and help for civil society, to promote dialogue.
Despite Israeli objections to the conference, and disapproval from the Trump team, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, will attend, and he is eager for the event not to be dismissed as a swansong for his frustrated efforts to seek peace.
In a move that gave the conference a new relevance, the US broke with precedent in December by refusing to veto a UN security council resolution that condemned Israeli settlements as “illegal and dangerously imperilling the viability of the two-state solution”. The resolution also called on “states in their relevant dealings to distinguish between the territory of the state of Israel and territories occupied since 1967”.
The clause, repeated in the draft Paris communique, has been taken as a green light for campaigns to boycott goods from illegally occupied territory. The EU will meet this week to discuss how the proposal could be developed.
The draft communique, under negotiation over the weekend, also reaffirms existing international resolutions, urges both sides to restate their commitment to a negotiated two-state solution and disavows officials who reject it.
The text urges the protagonists to “refrain from unilateral steps that prejudge the outcome of final status negotiations”.
In a sign that the Obama administration had lost patience with Israel, Kerry followed the UN vote with a lengthy speech on 28 December detailing the scale of settlement activity, and the threat it posed to a contiguous Palestinian state. Describing the Israeli government as the most rightwing in the country’s history, he warned that Israel would never have true peace with the Arab world if it “goes down the path of one state”.
Although Israel has voiced concerns that the Paris conference may be used as a lever for a UN resolution, the more likely theatre for further activity is the EU, including over boycotts of goods generated within occupied territories. More broadly, it may represent the start of a EU foreign policy more independent of Washington.
Britain, caught between its support for a two-state solution and desire to gain traction with the Trump administration, was deciding at what level to attend the conference.
To complicate matters further, the Russians are holding separate meetings in Moscow this week with Palestinian groups.
Trump has pledged to pursue more pro-Israeli policies, but in nomination hearings last week, neither the proposed secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, nor the expected defence secretary, James Mattis, supported moving the embassy from Tel Aviv. But David Friedman, Trump’s choice for ambassador to Israel, has said he looks forward to working “from Israel’s eternal city, Jerusalem”.
A move to Jerusalem would endorse the disputed city as Israel’s capital.
Peace Conference Set to Open in Paris, Against Backdrop of Netanyahu, Trump Disapproval
No Israeli or Palestinian representatives are attending the Paris conference, which is expected to end with a declaration of the international community’s intentions on the peace process.
Barak Ravid, Haaretz premium
January 15, 2017
Representatives from some 70 countries and organizations are to attend an international peace conference in Paris on Sunday, including 40 foreign ministers from several Arab and Western countries.
The Paris conference is not expected to produce practical decisions, but rather to serve as declarative event of the international community’s intentions toward the Middle East peace process.
According to French diplomats, the conference is being held at this time, a few days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, to convey a message to the president-elect about the importance the international community ascribes to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the extent of international consensus.
For outgoing U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, this is expected to be the last international event he will be attending before his term ends on January 20. The conference, which will be attended by neither Israeli nor Palestinian representatives, is to focus on a call by the international community to preserve the two-state solution and renewal of direct negotiations between the parties.
Senior French officials met a few weeks ago in New York with President-elect Donald Trump’s advisers and presented the programme for the conference, Haaretz has learned. Trump’s team was said to have objected strenuously to the very holding of the conference, especially at this time, five days before Trump’s inauguration.
The conference will open at 10:30 A.M. Israel time with a speech by French President Francois Hollande. Recommendations will then be presented that were formulated over the past few months by three working groups as part of the French initiative. The groups worked on economic incentives for the Israelis and the Palestinians, building the institutions of the future Palestinian state and strengthening groups in civil society working for peace.
At the close of the conference, scheduled for 7 P.M. Israel time, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault will present a concluding statement to the press. Senior diplomats from 10 of the participating countries met Saturday in Paris to debate the concluding statement. Some demanded that certain clauses be softened, while others demanded certain clauses be toughened.
Last week Haaretz published a draft of the conference’s closing statement, which included a call by the participating countries on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to reconfirm their commitment to the two-state solution and disavow officials in their government who oppose it.
“We call on each side to independently demonstrate, through policies and actions, a genuine commitment to the two-state solution and refrain from unilateral steps that prejudge the outcome of final-status negotiations, in order to rebuild trust and create a path back to meaningful direct negotiations,” according to the text.
In an interview to the French daily Le Figaro, Abbas said that the peace conference in Paris might be the last chance to implement the two-state solution. The Palestinian president warned against a possible American decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, which he said could lead to a change in the PA position recognizing Israel. The year 2017, Abbas told Le Figaro, “must be the year the occupation ends and the year of liberty and justice for the Palestinian people.”
Israel decided a few months ago to boycott the conference and maintained its position despite French efforts to persuade it otherwise. Senior Israeli officials slammed the French government and the conference on Saturday, calling it “futile.” The senior Israeli officials added that Israel would not consider itself bound by a single word of the closing statement.
“International conferences and UN resolutions only make peace more distant because they encourage the Palestinians in their continued refusal to negotiate directly with Israel,” the senior Israeli officials said. “The only way to reach peace is by direct negotiations by the parties, as was done with Egypt and Jordan. If the countries meeting in Paris want to move peace ahead, they have to press Abu Mazen [Abbas] to respond to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s invitation to enter direct negotiations,” they added.
The senior Israeli officials said that concluding statement’s draft that notes that everything outside the 1967 borders is Palestinian is “incorrect, unrealistic and will continue to lead to a dead end.” They added that, as opposed to the draft statement, Israel believes that the settlements are not an obstacle to peace, and are only an excuse for the Palestinians to avoid negotiations.
Netanyahu: Paris peace conference is ‘useless’
By Pierre Buet, James Masters and Oren Liebermann, CNN
January 15, 2017
Paris –Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has labelled an international peace conference in Paris aimed at solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as “useless.”
The conference, which is being attended by some 70 countries, started Sunday morning to discuss how to bring both sides to the negotiating table and maintain support for a two-state solution. The conference is expected to last one day. Neither Israel nor the Palestinian government is represented at the conference, and Netanyahu told his cabinet meeting Sunday that the talks were “among the last twitches of yesterday’s world.”
“It is being coordinated between the French and the Palestinians,” he said.
“Its goal is to try and force terms on Israel that conflict with our national needs. Of course it pushes peace further away because it hardens the Palestinian positions and it also pushes them away from direct negotiations without preconditions.
“I must say that this conference is among the last twitches of yesterday’s world. Tomorrow’s world will be different — and it is very near,” said Netanyahu seemingly referencing the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump in five days.
Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the conference at the opening of the Palestinian embassy in the Vatican on Saturday.
“We praise the role of President (Francois) Hollande and the French government in organizing this international conference, and we call upon the participants to take concrete measures in order to implement international law and UN resolutions,” Abbas said.
‘Emergency’
The talks, hosted by France, are aimed at restarting some level of negotiations after the last round of talks collapsed in 2014.
Jean-Marc Ayrault, the French foreign minister, told delegates, “there is no time to lose” over a solution.
“It is not the time to stop. The emergency remains,” he said.
“The parties remain very distanced in a relationship of defiance, which is particularly dangerous, and no one is immune to a new explosion of violence.”
French president Francois Hollande warned that accepting the “status quo” was not an option for the international community and criticized those who believe holding such a conference was “naive.”
“It would be naive to consider that bridging the gap between Israel and its neighbours, so necessary, is possible without progressing towards peace between Israelis and Palestinians,” he said in a speech.
The conference comes amid rising tensions between Israeli and Palestinian leaders following December’s passing of a UN Security Council resolution that condemned Israeli settlement construction.
The Security Council approved the resolution with 14 votes, with the US abstaining.
Israel fears the recommendations of the conference could turn into another Security Council resolution during the Obama administration’s final days in office.
Embassy controversy
Netanyahu has made it clear he’s looking forward to working with Trump, who campaigned on a pledge to relocate the US Embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — a proposal that has caused consternation within the international community.
Arab and European allies have warned the incoming Trump administration that such a move would risk undermining the peace process and lead to further violence in the region.
President Abbas responded by writing to the leaders of Russia, China, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Arab League and others asking them to stop Trump.
US Secretary of State John Kerry was also forthright in his opinion, warning that such a move could cause “an absolute explosion in the region.”
Last week, Trump’s transition team floated the possibility of initially having the US ambassador to Israel work and live in the US consulate in Jerusalem, while the American Embassy remains in Tel Aviv.
Abbas has himself written to Trump to register his concern over how moving the embassy could have a shattering effect on any chances of peace.
PLO Secretary-General and chief negotiator Saeb Erekat also confirmed that Russia had been urged to prevent any such move from occurring.
“The Palestinian Presidential office have sent a message to all foreign ministries asking them to use all tools to prevent Trump’s decision to relocate the American embassy to Jerusalem. This will put an end to the two-state solution and it crosses all red lines,” Erekat told CNN.
Erekat also confirmed the message from Abbas was delivered to President Putin “through Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday.”
At Paris meeting, major powers to warn Trump over Middle East peace
By John Irish and Lesley Wroughton, Reuters UK
January 15, 2017
Major powers will signal to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday that a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians is the only solution, with France warning him that plans to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem could derail peace efforts.
Some 70 countries, including key European and Arab states as well as the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, are in Paris for a meeting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected as “futile”. Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians will be represented.
But, just five days before Trump is sworn in, the conference provides a platform for countries to send a strong signal to the incoming American president.
Trump has pledged to pursue more pro-Israeli policies and move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv, where it has been for 68 years, to Jerusalem, all but enshrining the city as Israel’s capital despite international objections.
Calling it a provocation, France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the move would have serious consequences on the ground.
“One cannot have such a clear-cut, unilateral position. You have to create the conditions for peace,” he told France 3 television.
Paris has said the meeting will not impose anything on Israel or the Palestinians and that only direct negotiations can resolve the conflict.
A draft communique seen by Reuters reaffirms existing international resolutions, urges both sides to restate their commitment to the two-state solution and disavow officials who reject it. The communique asks the protagonists to “refrain from unilateral steps that prejudge the outcome of final status negotiations”.
LOW POINT
Diplomats said the communique could be toughened up with an allusion to Trump’s plans for Jerusalem and whether to have a follow-up to the French initiative intensely debated.
“This conference is among the last twitches of the world of yesterday,” Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting on Sunday. “Tomorrow will look different and that tomorrow is very close.”
Relations between the United States and Israel have soured during President Barack Obama’s administration, reaching a low point late last month when Washington declined to veto a U.N. resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlements in occupied territory.
Obama’s secretary of state, John Kerry, said the settlement programme threatened Middle East peace and the two-state solution.
Palestinian President Authority Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday that he had told Trump that a move to Jerusalem would kill off the peace process and strip the U.S. of its role as honest broker – and could lead to the Palestinians going back on their recognition of Israel.
Home to Europe’s largest Muslim and Jewish communities, France has tried to breathe new life into the peace process over the past year. It believes that, with the uncertainty surrounding how the next U.S. administration will handle the issue, it is important to push the sides back to talks rather than allowing a fragile status quo to fester.
But with elections coming up this year in France and Germany, and Britain appearing to align itself more closely with the Trump administration on the issue, the prospects of the European Union, the largest economic partner for both Israel and the Palestinians, taking a lead on the matter appear unlikely.
Arab states also have concerns about how Trump’s relationship with them will turn out, and have taken a cautious line.
Additional reporting by Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem
Israel furious as US joins ‘rigged’ Paris peace talks
By AFP/ the local
January 15, 2017
US Secretary of State John Kerry joined diplomats from more than 70 countries in Paris on Sunday in a new push for peace in the Middle East, just five days before Donald Trump takes office.
Diplomats from 70 countries gathered in Paris on Sunday to try to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts amid fears of a new escalation if Donald Trump implements a pledge to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Neither Israel nor the Palestinians are represented at the conference, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed as “rigged” against the Jewish state.
Opening the meeting, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the international community wanted to “forcefully reiterate that the two-state solution is the only solution possible” to the seven-decade-old conflict.
In a TV interview later, Ayrault warned that moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would have “extremely serious consequences” and predicted Trump would find it impossible to do so.
“When you are president of the United States, you cannot take such a stubborn and such a unilateral view on this issue. You have to try to create the conditions for peace,” he told France 3 TV.
Both Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas have been invited to meet with President Francois Hollande to discuss the conclusions of the Paris talks.
Abbas, who has backed the meeting, is expected to travel to Paris in the coming weeks but Netanyahu rejected the offer, French diplomats said.
“The conference convening today in Paris is a futile conference,” Netanyahu told ministers at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on Sunday. “It was coordinated between the French and the Palestinians with the aim of imposing upon Israel conditions that are incompatible with our national needs,” he said.
Three French Jewish groups called for a protest Sunday outside the Israeli embassy in Paris to denounce the conference.
The meeting is mainly symbolic, but comes at a crucial juncture for the Middle East, five days before Trump, who has vowed unstinting support for Israel, is sworn in as US president.
Israel fears the conference could produce measures that could be put to the Security Council before Trump takes over.
The French have insisted they have no such plans. “France has no other desire than to serve peace, and there is no time to lose,” Ayrault said.
Peace efforts have been at a standstill since a US-led initiative collapsed in April 2014. Tensions are again running high after a wave of Palestinian attacks and Israel’s ongoing expansion of settlements on land the Palestinians want for their state.
On Saturday, Abbas warned that peace could be dealt a mortal blow if Trump moves the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognising the contested city as Israel’s capital as he indicated during campaigning.
Such a move would mark a radical departure from US policy and the UN’s position that the status of Jerusalem can only be decided in negotiations.
“Any attempts at legitimising the illegal Israeli annexation of the city will destroy the prospects of any political process, bury the hopes for a two-state solution, and fuel extremism in our region, as well as worldwide,” Abbas warned during a visit to the Vatican.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, who rebuked Israel recently over its settler activity on Palestinian territory, will join the talks on his farewell tour, along with delegates from the UN, EU and Arab League.
A draft conference communique called on Israel and the Palestinians to restate their support for two states and to refrain from “unilateral steps that prejudge the outcome of final status negotiations.”
Netanyahu has lashed out at the Paris meeting, saying only direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians can bring peace.
Israel fears being further isolated by the conference, which comes hot on the heels of a landmark December UN resolution criticising the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.