France calls on EU to pressure Israel to move on Palestinian two-state solution
'The European Commission, on behalf of the EU, has to express its expectations and show the means that we can incentivise the Israeli government to hear this appeal,' he said.
Mr Barrot spoke on the first day of a high-level UN meeting on a two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is being co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia.
The conference, which was postponed from June and downgraded to the ministerial level, is taking place in New York as international condemnation of Israel's handling of the war in Gaza reaches a fever pitch.
Both Israel and its closest ally, the United States, refused to participate in the meeting, which Mr Barrot said is being attended by representatives of 125 countries, including 50 ministers.
The aim of the conference, Mr Barrot said, is 'to reverse the trend of what is happening in the region – mainly the erasure of the two-state solution, which has been for a long time the only solution that can bring peace and security in the region.'
He urged the European Commission to call on Israel to lift a financial blockade on two billion euros he says the Israeli government owes the Palestinian Authority; stop settlement building in the West Bank, which threatens the territorial integrity of a future Palestinian state; and end the 'militarised' food delivery system in Gaza by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has resulted in hundreds of killings.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the two-state solution on both nationalistic and security grounds.
Ahead of the meeting, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would recognise Palestine as a state at the annual gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly in September. The bold but mostly symbolic move is aimed at adding diplomatic pressure on Israel.
France is now the biggest Western power and the only member of the Group of Seven major industrialised nations to recognise the state of Palestine, and the move could pave the way for other countries to do the same.
More than 140 countries recognise a Palestinian state, including more than a dozen in Europe.
At the conference opening, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa called for all countries who have not yet recognised Palestine as a state to do so 'without delay'.
'The path to peace begins by recognising the state of Palestine and preserving it from destruction,' he said.
The other issue being discussed at the conference is normalisation between Israel and the Arab states in the region. Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the Saudi foreign minister, stressed that normalisation of relations with Israel 'can only come through the establishment of a Palestinian state'.
With global anger rising over desperately hungry people in Gaza starting to die from starvation, US President Donald Trump on Monday called for increasing aid to Palestinians, a rare glimpse of daylight between him and Mr Netanyahu, who has said there is no starvation.
Both Mr Barrot and Mr Farhan said on Monday that the US is an essential actor in the region and that it was the president in January who secured the only ceasefire in the 21-month war.
'I am firmly in the belief that Trump's engagement can be a catalyst for an end to the immediate crisis in Gaza and potentially a resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the long term,' Mr Farhan said.
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The Guardian
28 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Europe's trade deal with the US was dead on arrival – it needs to be buried. Here's how to do it
Ursula von der Leyen's Turnberry golf course deal has been rightly called a capitulation and a humiliation for Europe. Assuming such an accord would put an end to Donald Trump's coercion and bullying was either naive or the result of a miserable delusion. The EU should now steel itself and reject the terms imposed by Trump. Is this deal really as bad as it sounds? Unfortunately, it is, for at least three reasons. The blow to Europe's international credibility is incalculable in a world that expects the EU to stand up for reciprocity and rules-based trade, to resist Washington's coercion as Canada, China and Brazil have, rather than condoning it. Economically, it's a damaging one-way street: EU exporters lose market access in the US while the EU market is hit by more favoured US competition. Core European industrial sectors such as pharma and steel and aluminium are left by the wayside. The balance also tilts in the US's favour in important sectors such as consumer goods, food and drink, and agriculture. Tariffs tend to stick, so this is long-term damage. The EU even gives up its right to respond to future US pressures through duties on digital services or network fees. To top it off, von der Leyen's defence and investment pledges (for which she had no mandate) go against Europe's interest. The EU's competitiveness predicament is precisely one of net investment outflows. As international capital now reallocates under the pressures of Trumponomics and a weakening dollar, the case for Europe to become a strategic investment power was strengthening. Von der Leyen's promise of $600bn in EU investment in the US is therefore disastrous messaging. How could this happen? All EU member states wanted to avoid Trump's 30% tariff threat and a trade war, but none perhaps as much as Germany and Ireland, supported by German carmakers and US big tech firms. 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For Europe, the lesson from the Brexit negotiations – one that von der Leyen ought to have grasped before now – is that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. There is now an opportunity for EU governments and the European parliament to course correct and salvage something from this train wreck. Georg Riekeles is the associate director of the European Policy Centre, and Varg Folkman is policy analyst at the European Policy Centre
The National
an hour ago
- The National
History will judge monsters who enabled a genocide
Keir Starmer's announcement that Britain will recognise the State of Palestine in September if Israel doesn't agree to a ceasefire and a two-state solution sums up his political project. Starmer himself is an empty vessel, a mere frontman for Labour's most reactionary and self-serving political faction: his own advisers briefed that he thinks he's driving a train, but they had placed him in front of London's driverless District Light Railway. This faction is defined by its cynicism, lacking not just a vision for our disunited kingdom, but a moral core. They saw that growing numbers of MPs were demanding Palestinian recognition, including some of the drones they parachuted into the parliamentary party, whose blind loyalty has been frayed by the realisation they're heading towards electoral apocalypse. READ MORE: Gaza detainees 'tortured and raped' by Israeli forces, United Nations hears The SNP were preparing to force a parliamentary vote on statehood, which would leave Labour exposed. And indeed other European states, like Spain, have already taken this step, with the likes of France making clear they will too. But all Starmer's aides care about is political game playing, rather than what happens to be the right thing to do. And here's the thing – they're not even good at it. They scrapped the universal Winter Fuel Payment because they thought it would win respect as a 'tough decision'. Alas, they project their lack of a heart on to the electorate, who shocked Labour goons by being averse to freezing their grans. They decided to wage war on disabled people with cuts which would drive hundreds of thousands into hardship, and were again shocked at being stopped in their tracks by the consequent revulsion, including from the malfunctioning androids who benefited from their rigged parliamentary selections. In this case, their ruse is as cackhanded as it is morally bankrupt. 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South Wales Guardian
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