UNITED NATIONS, July 29 — Dozens of ministers gathered at a United Nations conference yesterday to urge the world to work towards a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine, but the United States and Israel boycotted the event.
The 193-member UN General Assembly decided in September last year that such a conference would be held this year. Hosted by France and Saudi Arabia, the conference was postponed in June after Israel attacked Iran.
Addressing the conference, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud urged all countries to support the conference goal of a roadmap laying out the parameters to a Palestine state while ensuring Israel’s security.
“We must ensure it does not become another exercise in well-meaning rhetoric,” UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said in opening remarks.
“It can and must serve as a decisive turning point — one that catalyses irreversible progress towards ending the occupation and realising our shared aspiration for a viable two-state solution.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told the conference: “We must work on the ways and means to go from the end of the war in Gaza to the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, at a time when this war is jeopardising the stability and security of the entire region.”
Barrot told newspaper La Tribune Dimanche in an interview published on Sunday that he will use the conference this week to push other countries to join France in recognising a Palestine state.
France intends to recognise a Palestine state in September at the annual gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly, French President Emmanuel Macron said last week.
Palestine Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa — an official with the Palestinian Authority that exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank under Israeli occupation — called on all countries to “recognise the state of Palestine without delay”, adding: “The path to peace starts with recognising the state of Palestine and preserving it from destruction. The rights of all peoples must be respected, the sovereignty of all states must be ensured. Palestine, and its people can no longer be the exception.”
Israel, US boycott
The war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza still rages after nearly 22 months. The war was triggered on October 7, 2023, when Palestinian Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took some 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel’s military campaign has killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
The US will not attend the conference at the UN, said a State Department spokesperson, describing it as “a gift to Hamas, which continues to reject ceasefire proposals accepted by Israel that would lead to the release of hostages and bring calm in Gaza”.
The State Department spokesperson added that Washington voted against the General Assembly last year calling for the conference and would “not support actions that jeopardise the prospect for a long-term, peaceful resolution to the conflict”.
Israel is also not taking part in the conference.
Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon yesterday said: “This conference does not promote a solution, but rather deepens the illusion. Instead of demanding the release of the hostages and working to dismantle Hamas’s reign of terror, the conference organisers are engaging in discussions and plenaries that are disconnected from reality.”
The UN has long endorsed a vision of two states living side by side within secure and recognised borders. Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, all territory captured by Israel in the 1967 war with neighboring Arab states.
The UN General Assembly in May last year overwhelmingly backed a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognising it as qualified to join and recommending the UN Security Council “reconsider the matter favourably”. The resolution garnered 143 votes in favor and nine against.
The General Assembly vote was a global survey of support for Palestine’s bid to become a full UN member — a move that would effectively recognise a Palestine state — after the US vetoed it in the UN Security Council several weeks earlier.
— Reuters
