Diplomats meet to urge push for Mideast peace

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 US 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.

Netanyahu has snubbed Sunday’s conference as “rigged” against Israel, and Trump’s incoming administration isn’t taking part.

“A two-state solution is the only possible one,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said in opening the conference, calling it “more indispensable than ever” to solve the protracted conflict.

“Both parties are very far apart and their relationship is one of distrust a particularly dangerous situation,” Ayrault added. “Our 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’t.”

French diplomats fear Trump will unleash new tensions in the region by condoning settlements on land claimed by the Palestinians and potentially moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to con- tested Jerusalem.

US 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 US 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.