BICOM

Israel’s Prime Minister warned yesterday that a peace conference in Paris on Sunday will be used to condemn Israel and will be detrimental towards the prospects of peace.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a joint press conference in Jerusalem with Norway’s visiting Foreign Minister Borge Brende: “It’s a rigged conference, rigged by the Palestinians with French auspices to adopt additional anti-Israel stances… This pushes peace backwards. It’s not going to obligate us. It’s a relic of the past. It’s a last gasp of the past before the future sets in.”

On Sunday, representatives of approximately 70 countries will meet in Paris for a conference on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. US Secretary of State John Kerry will attend, although it is unclear whether Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson will join him in Paris.

Israeli and Palestinian representatives have not been invited to attend, but Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to meet France’s President Francois Hollande on Monday for a briefing.

Hollande said yesterday that the purpose of the conference is to “reaffirm the international community’s support for the two-state solution” but that “peace will only be done by the Israelis and Palestinians and by nobody else. Only bilateral negotiations can succeed”.

The outcome of Sunday’s meeting is expected to be a joint communique, the details of which are still being negotiated between the participant countries.

On Monday, Haaretz published an alleged working draft of the document, which will “call on each side to independently demonstrate, through policies and actions, a genuine commitment to the two-state solution” and disown officials in their governments who oppose this.

Israeli officials oppose Sunday’s conference as they fear that such multi-lateral forums further encourage the PA to reject direct talks with Israel. Netanyahu has repeatedly affirmed his commitment to negotiating with the Palestinians without preconditions.

Maariv reports Israeli concerns that any communique from Sunday’s event will serve as a basis for a United Nations’ Security Council resolution hostile towards Israel.