SPOTLIGHT: ISRAEL-PALESTINE TALKS IN PARIS, A "USELESS CONFERENCE"?
The headlines in France on the new Mideast conference are hardly inspiring. "The French initiative will fail," declared right-leaning daily Le Figaro. Newsmagazine Le Point was more succinct: "A useless conference," it noted.
As is often the case with Israel-Palestine peace talks, expectations are low at the international conference that is starting today in Paris. Israeli foreign minister Dore Gold roundly rejected it even before it started. The gathering will include representatives from 28 Arab and Western countries and organizations but the most important stakeholders will be missing: Israel and Palestine will not participate in the talks. "We don't want to act in the place of the Israelis and Palestinians but we want to help them," French foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told France Info radio station this morning, underscoring that direct talks between the two do not work.
The conference will aim to be pragmatic and use a new, original approach that draws on lessons from previous failures, including that of the U.S.-led peace talks in 2014, when negotiations collapsed after an agreement deadline expired. It's important to remember that this conference is only a first step and would hopefully prepare the ground for direct negotiations in the fall of 2016.
In recent years, the Israel-Palestine situation has taken a backseat to other conflicts unfolding in the Middle East. Today's Paris talks are an attempt to bring it back into the spotlight. "We're not going to reinvent the wheel," French newspaper Le Monde quotes a negotiator as saying in Paris. But maybe it'll get the machine going — once again.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR TODAY (& WEEKEND)
- Peru holds second round of presidential elections Sunday.
- World Environmental Day falls on Sunday.
- U.S. election caucuses in Virgin Islands (Saturday) and Puerto Rico (Sunday).