‘No alternative’ to two-state solution

AFP | United Nations

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France told a UN conference co-chaired with Saudi Arabia yesterday that there is “no alternative” to a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.

“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.

In an interview with French weekly La Tribune Dimanche, Barrot said that other European countries will confirm “their intention to recognize 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 deploy to help underwrite Palestinian statehood. “Recognize the state of Palestine without delay.”

France is hoping that Britain will take this step. More than 200 British members of parliament on Friday voiced support for the idea, but Prime Minister Keir Starmer reiterated that recognition of a Palestinian state “must be part of a wider plan.”

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, Israelis and Palestinians living 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 be geographically impossible.

The current war in Gaza started following a deadly attack by Hamas on Israel, which responded with a large-scale military response that has claimed tens of thousands of Palestinian lives.