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The French Peace Initiative

(Israel Hayom) Zalman Shoval - President Francois Hollande told the Paris peace conference on Friday, "We are no longer in the situation of 1993, with the Oslo Accords....We are in 2016, with the war in Syria, with the war in Iraq, with terrorism and fundamentalism." This statement proves that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict isn't the main, and certainly not the only, contributing factor to Middle East instability. It's the chaos spreading in the region due to Islamic fundamentalism, the collapse of the states formed under Sykes-Picot, and the ascent of Iran. One gets the clear impression that the Americans weren't too wild about the meeting, as evidenced by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry refusing to do anything but sign off on a general, noncommittal statement. The absence of the German, British, and Russian foreign ministers was also a sign of their country's reservations about the French initiative. The Palestinians, of course, were pleased with the Paris meeting. The very fact that the conference took place and the chance that it might have a sequel plays into their game of internationalizing the conflict as much as possible without direct negotiations with Israel and without concessions or compromise on their part. The writer is a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S.
2016-06-07 00:00:00
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