'No alternative' to two-state solution
There is "no alternative" to a two-state solution between Israelis and the Palestinians, France told a UN conference co-chaired with Saudi Arabia on Monday that was boycotted by Israel and Washington.
"Only a political, two-state solution will help respond to the legitimate aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security. There is no alternative," French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said at the start of the three-day meeting.
Days before the conference, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that he would formally recognize a State of Palestine in September, provoking strong opposition from Israel and the United States.
Barrot said that other Western countries will confirm their intention to recognise the State of Palestine during the conference, without confirming which.
"All states have a responsibility to act now," said Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Mustafa at the start of the meeting, calling for an international force to help underwrite Palestinian statehood.
"Recognize the state of Palestine without delay."
France is hoping that Britain will follow its lead. More than 200 British members of parliament on Friday voiced support for the idea, but Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that recognition of a Palestinian state "must be part of a wider plan".
The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at the meeting "the two-state solution is farther than ever before," decrying Israel's "creeping annexation" of the occupied West Bank and "the wholesale destruction of Gaza."
According to an AFP database, at least 142 of the 193 UN member states now recognize the Palestinian state proclaimed by the Palestinian leadership in exile in 1988.
In 1947, a resolution of the UN General Assembly decided on the partition of Palestine, then under a British mandate, into two independent states -- one Jewish and the other Arab. The following year, the state of Israel was proclaimed.
For several decades, the vast majority of UN member states have supported the idea of a two-state solution, which would see Israel and a Palestinian state existing side-by-side.
But after more than 21 months of war in Gaza, the ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and Israeli officials declaring designs to annex occupied territory, it is feared a Palestinian state could become geographically impossible. AFP
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