Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

France Delays Mideast Peace Conference — Israel Sticks to Boycott

France has postponed a proposed Middle East peace conference in Paris to January next year, its ambassador to the United Nations said, acknowledging that the conditions to bring Israelis and Palestinians face-to-face were currently not there.

France has repeatedly tried to breathe new life into the peace process this year, holding a preliminary conference in June where the United Nations, European Union, United States and major Arab countries gathered to discuss proposals without the Israelis or Palestinians present.

The plan was to hold a follow-up conference before the end of the year with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas involved to see whether the two sides could be brought back to negotiations and revive moribund peace talks.

Netanyahu had repeatedly rejected the conference proposal and with attendance from the United States in doubt holding such a meeting appeared complicated.

“After nearly a year of efforts, France will hold during January an international conference bringing together all the states attached to (seeking) peace,” Ambassador Francois Delattre said in remarks carried by the foreign ministry on Saturday.

“Everyone knows that only the Israelis and Palestinians will be able to conclude a peace directly, but we have to recognize today that the conditions are not in place today to restart the negotiations.”

It was not clear from Delattre’s comments whether France still intended to try to bring Netanyahu and Abbas to the negotiating table in the French capital.

The conference of foreign ministers was aimed at agreeing on a joint statement that would reaffirm the two-state solution on the basis of pre-1967 borders and according to Security Council resolutions, diplomats have said.

The last U.S.-backed talks ended in failure in April 2014 and the outgoing administration appears unwilling to tackle the issue before President-elect Donald Trump takes over on Jan. 20.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.