Israel wrong not to attend the Paris conference

French fully justified to keep the Palestinian issue at the top of the international community’s agenda

The Israeli government is wrong to have refused to attend the important conference today in Paris on how to encourage peace between Palestine and Israel. More than 70 nations are gathering at the behest of the French who are working to keep the Palestinian issue at the top of the international agenda and United States Secretary of State John Kerry is due to attend the debate and make a significant contribution. The idea was that there would be two separate processes in Paris: The first would include all the potential donor nations to refine what they would offer if a peace deal was made, and the second would be direct talks between Palestine and Israel.

Sadly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intransigence put an end to any hope of bilateral progress. He felt outmanoeuvred by the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 last month, affirming the illegality of West Bank colonies, and so refused to encourage a return to any peace negotiation. Many other Israelis have vilified the Paris meeting, against which they have started a shocking campaign of hate. One Israeli lobby even uses gross and offensive language like describing the two-state solution as “forcing Israel to accept the 1949 Auschwitz Borders and hand over most of [occupied] Jerusalem to the Arabs, presumably for yet more ethnic cleansing”. This kind of senseless argument leaves no room for rational discussion and is designed to foment hatred and wreck any progress. But this is the reality of the world in which the Palestinians have been forced to live. What happens in Paris may help, but progress has to be made on the ground.