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Israel's Foreign Ministry Chief:
(Times of Israel) Raphael Ahren - Dore Gold has become the face of Israel's foreign policy since he became the director-general of the Foreign Ministry in June 2015. He said in an interview that Israel will likely boycott a French-planned international conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Paris, if it goes ahead later this year. "The French initiative unfortunately is an alternative to direct negotiations.... It's undermining the whole peace process that was begun in Madrid," referring to a 1991 summit attended by Israel. "Madrid, and afterwards of course the Oslo accords, envisioned specifically direct negotiations without preconditions. That's the international consensus, and the French initiative is a deviation." In the 1990s, Gold spent many hours negotiating with now PA President Mahmoud Abbas. "He has certain maps in his mind that are beyond the maps the people of Israel can accept. He dabbles in the delegitimization of Israel and in the total denial of Jewish history. That raises serious questions whether he can deliver, or wants to deliver, a permanent solution. I'm not sure he wants to." "Unfortunately, he has fallen into a pattern of behavior of relying on vicious incitement against the people of Israel, which simply cannot be accepted....His need for using incitement to violence and condoning terrorist acts after the fact just raises serious questions about whether he can ultimately be relied upon to produce a political settlement." Gold also rejected international criticism that expanding Jewish communities is rendering a two-state solution impossible. The international reaction to the "addition of another row of houses in an existing settlement" in the West Bank is "very difficult to understand." Most of the Jews live in settlement blocs that are expected to be annexed to Israel in a peace deal. "The addition of Jews is not what's blocking a peace settlement....What's blocking the peace settlement is this Palestinian resorting to violence."