[IsraelTimes] Why is a lame-duck French president hosting a peace summit without Israelis, Paleostinians or the incoming US administration? To send a message.It sounds far-fetched at best: holding a Mideast peace conference without Israelis, Paleostinians or the incoming US government.
But the French organizers say that’s the whole point. They want Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President-elect Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
to see that most of the world wants a two-state solution and is fed up with decades of conflict.
With chances for a Mideast peace deal lower than in years -- perhaps a generation -- French President Francois Hollande
...the Socialist president of La Belle France, an economic bad joke for la Belle France but seemingly a foreign policy realist...
figures there’s nothing to lose.
French diplomats fear that Trump will unleash new tensions in the region by condoning settlements on land claimed by the Paleostinians and potentially moving the US Embassy to contested Jerusalem.
So more than 70 foreign ministers and other top envoys are gathering Sunday in Gay Paree to urge the establishment of a Paleostinian state.
Netanyahu says the conference is "rigged" against Israel and declined an invitation to a special meeting afterward. Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
was initially expected, but his visit to Gay Paree has been postponed.
Even the organizers know it’s symbolic; no one expects a breakthrough. It’s aimed at presenting Trump with a collective international push for peace once he takes office Friday.
For Obama’s outgoing government, Sunday’s meeting marks the bitter, disappointing end of eight years of failed Israeli-Paleostinian diplomacy. Days before leaving office, Secretary of State John F.
I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a
lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, unsuccessful presidential candidate, and utterly failed Secretary of State...
will headline the Gay Paree event -- yet he’s participating only to ensure that America’s interest in a two-state solution is preserved.
According to a draft statement obtained by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named on Friday, the conference will urge Israel and the Paleostinians "to officially restate their commitment to the two-state solution." It also will affirm that the international community "will not recognize" changes to Israel’s pre-1967 lines without agreement by both sides.
Hollande’s government has been trying for years to revive peace-making, pointing to diplomatic successes like the 2015 Gay Paree climate agreement, its improved relations with Israel over the past decade and hard line against Israeli rivals Iran and Syria.
But with Netanyahu snubbing the conference and Trump’s administration "reserved" about it, according to a French diplomat, Sunday’s gathering looks increasingly like an effort to isolate Israel, not entice it to the negotiating table.
Pro-Israel demonstrators plan a protest Sunday in Gay Paree.
Hollande too is a lame duck, leaving office in May -- and his government has made no plans to follow up Sunday’s conference with enforcement measures or outreach to Trump’s team.
The final declaration may warn Trump against moving the embassy, a move that could be seen as recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital after decades of insisting that the city’s status must be determined by direct negotiations.
The sides haven’t negotiated even indirectly since a failed US peace effort in 2014.