By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -Dozens of ministers gathered at a United Nations conference on Monday to urge that the world work toward a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, but the U.S. and Israel boycotted the event.
The 193-member U.N. General Assembly decided in September last year that such a conference would be held in 2025. 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 support the conference goal of a roadmap laying out the parameters to a Palestinian state while ensuring Israel’s security.
“We must ensure that it does not become another exercise in well-meaning rhetoric,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in opening remarks.
“It can and must serve as a decisive turning point – one that catalyzes irreversible progress towards ending the occupation and realizing 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 jeopardizing 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 recognizing a Palestinian state.
France intends to recognize a Palestinian state in September at the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly, President Emmanuel Macron said last week.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa – an official with the Palestinian Authority which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank under Israeli occupation – called on all countries to “recognize the state of Palestine without delay,” adding: “The path to peace starts with recognizing 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,” he told the conference.
U.S., ISRAEL 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 U.S. will not attend the conference at the United Nations, 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 jeopardize the prospect for a long-term, peaceful resolution to the conflict.”
Israel is also not taking part in the conference.
Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said on Monday: “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 organizers are engaging in discussions and plenaries that are disconnected from reality.”
The U.N. has long endorsed a vision of two states living side by side within secure and recognized 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 U.N. General Assembly in May last year overwhelmingly backed a Palestinian bid to become a full U.N. member by recognizing it as qualified to join and recommending the U.N. Security Council “reconsider the matter favorably.” The resolution garnered 143 votes in favor and nine against.
The General Assembly vote was a global survey of support for the Palestinian bid to become a full U.N. member – a move that would effectively recognize a Palestinian state – after the U.S. vetoed it in the U.N. Security Council several weeks earlier.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols, additional reporting by John Irish in Paris; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Howard Goller)
