Dozens of ministers will gather at the United Nations on Monday for a delayed conference to work toward a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, but the US and Israel are boycotting the event.
The 193-member UN 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 due to the 12-day war between Israel and Iran.
The conference aims to lay out the parameters for a roadmap to a Palestinian state, while ensuring Israel’s security.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told newspaper La Tribune Dimanche in an interview published on Sunday that he will also 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.
“We will launch an appeal in New York so that other countries join us to initiate an even more ambitious and demanding dynamic that will culminate on September 21,” Barrot said, adding that he expected Arab countries by then to condemn Palestinian terror group Hamas and call for its disarmament.
Israel panned Macron’s announcement of pending recognition, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying it “rewards terror” and poses an existential threat to Israel. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called it “a slap in the face to the victims of October 7.”
Italy and Britain have both said they will not join France in recognizing a Palestinian state.
The conference comes as the 22-month war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza still rages. The war was triggered on October 7, 2023, when a Hamas-led invasion killed 1,200 people in southern Israel, and saw terrorists abduct 251 hostages to Gaza, of whom 50 remain in captivity.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says almost 60,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
The US 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 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, “which doesn’t first urgently address the issue of condemning Hamas and returning all of the remaining hostages,” said Jonathan Harounoff, international spokesperson at Israel’s UN mission.
The postponement last month came after Israel launched a sweeping assault on Iran’s top military leaders, nuclear scientists, uranium enrichment sites, and ballistic missile program. The US later also bombed three key Iranian nuclear sites and then brokered a ceasefire.
The UN 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 territories captured by Israel in the 1967 war with neighboring Arab states. Israel claims Jerusalem as its unified capital.
The UN General Assembly in May last year overwhelmingly backed a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognizing it as qualified to join and recommending the UN 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 UN member — a move that would effectively recognize a Palestinian state — after the US vetoed it in the UN Security Council several weeks earlier.