UNITED NATIONS: Fired by France’s imminent recognition of Palestinian statehood, UN members meet next week to breathe life into the push for a two-state solution as Israel, expected to be absent, presses its military offensive in Gaza.
Days before the July 28-30 conference on fostering Israeli and Palestinian states living peacefully side-by-side to be co-chaired by Saudi Arabia and France, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would formally recognise the State of Palestine in September.
His declaration “will breathe new life into a conference that seemed destined to irrelevance,” said Richard Gowan, an analyst at International Crisis Group.
“Macron’s announcement changes the game. Other participants will be scrabbling to decide if they should also declare an intent to recognise Palestine.”
According to an AFP database, at least 142 of the 193 UN member states — including France — now recognise the Palestinian state proclaimed by the Palestinian leadership 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, and for several decades, the vast majority of UN member states have supported the idea of a two-state solution: Israeli and Palestinian, living side-by-side peacefully and securely.
The war in Gaza started following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Israel responded with a large-scale, relentless military response that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.
The New York conference is a response to the crisis, with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa and several dozen ministers from around the world expected to attend.
‘No alternative’
The meeting comes as a two-state solution is “more threatened than it has ever been (but) even more necessary than before, because we see very clearly that there is no alternative,” said a French diplomatic source.
Ahead of the conference, which was delayed from June, Britain said it would not recognise a Palestinian state unilaterally and would wait for “a wider plan” for peace in the region.
Macron has also not yet persuaded Germany to follow suit and recognise a Palestinian state in the short term.
The conference “offers a unique opportunity to transform international law and the international consensus into an achievable plan and to demonstrate resolve to end the Israeli occupation and conflict once and for all, for the benefit of all peoples,” said the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, calling for “courage” from participants.
Israel and the United States will not take part in the meeting.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, has announced that Israel will not be taking part in this conference, which doesn’t first urgently address the issue of condemning Hamas and returning all of the remaining hostages,” according to embassy spokesman Jonathan Harounoff.
As international pressure continues to mount on Israel to end nearly two years of war in Gaza, the humanitarian catastrophe in the ravaged coastal territory is expected to dominate speeches by representatives of more than 100 countries as they take to the podium from Monday to Wednesday.
Gowan said he expected “very fierce criticism of Israel.”
