France was hosting more than 100 Palestinian and Israeli peace activists on Friday in a bid to keep the two-state solution alive, despite an Israeli push to annex the West Bank.
The goal is to “build a bridge between Israelis and Palestinians who don't speak to each other, who don't see each other,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told broadcaster France 2 ahead of the meeting.
“The peace process is not moving forward any more, it must be relaunched. Let's face it, it's almost impossible for an Israeli to go to Palestine, or for a Palestinian to go to Israel.”
Israeli and Palestinian political leaders were not invited to the meeting, which is aimed at promoting civil society. High-level political dialogue remains unable to produce solutions to the decades-old conflict.
It is hoped the outcome will form a set of recommendations that will be handed by activists to Mr Barrot and a dozen ministerial representatives largely from Europe and Arab states. There is further hope they will feed into talks next week at a summit of G7 leaders.
Regional integration, the implementation of a two-state solution, the threat of Israel's annexation of the West Bank, security and humanitarian action were among the topics to be discussed by participants. The National was allowed to report on what was said without naming participants, so they could speak more freely.
Risk of collapse
It was said that Palestinians and Israelis fear each other's priorities, statehood and a regional security framework, respectively. Palestinians worry integration could draw international attention away from their right to a state while Israelis believe a Palestinian state would threaten their existence.
“Our role here is to demonstrate to both sides how regional integration and a Palestinian state go hand in hand,” one participant said.
Palestinians attending were keen to highlight their desperate economic and security situation. Settler attacks have increased in the occupied West Bank, while the Israeli government withholds the Palestinian Authority's tax revenue, severely limiting public services.
They called on the international community to put more pressure on Israel and save the two-state solution. “There is no value-added in this conference if there is collapse,” another participant said.
Organisers believe promoting the idea of a two-state solution is “more necessary than ever” in the face of worsening regional conflicts, Foreign Ministry spokesman Pascal Confavreux said, “because we want the Israeli-Palestinian issue to remain on the agenda, as it is a key issue for regional stability.”
The Israeli government says recognition of Palestinian statehood last year by France and 10 other nations was akin to a gift to Hamas for the October 2023 attacks.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has criticised French diplomatic initiatives to find a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict
Fresh views
Young generations of Israelis and Palestinians must be educated in analysing a two-state solution with fresh eyes, said John Lyndon, executive director at the Alliance for Middle East Peace (Allmep).
“The biggest barrier towards the bottom-up peace is Israelis and Palestinians who don't understand the lived reality that the other has,” Mr Lyndon told The National.
Polling conducted in April by Allmep found Israeli respondents had become slightly more open to the idea of a two-state solution than the previous year.
Some 27 per cent said a political resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a priority, up 2.2 percentage points.
This was sixth in the list of priorities, way behind “eliminating terrorist organisations and infrastructure” and “regional normalisation with Arab states”.
“We have around half of Israelis who believe that regional normalisation plus a Palestinian state is either essential or desirable, and I would note that 50 per cent is bigger than the vote share for any party in the Knesset,” Mr Lyndon said, referring to the Israeli parliament. “Yet there's not a single party in Israeli politics that is campaigning as this being their top priority.”
Elections in Israel are scheduled for later this year.
