Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's description of the Middle East peace conference in Paris as "rigged" needs some parsing and explaining. Netanyahu claims the Jan. 15 conference is rigged by the Palestinians. The Palestinians have welcomed the multilateral approach to ending the conflict because years of negotiations have not ended Israel's occupation of their land. Netanyahu's policy backing settlements in the occupied territories is making a future Palestinian state impossible. So the Palestinians are hoping the Paris conference delivers a strong international endorsement of the two-state solution, a goal that has been the bedrock of all UN resolutions. As such, the Palestinians have campaigned for the international community to assume a greater role in resolving the conflict, and have, therefore, welcomed the French initiative. According to Netanyahu, the conference has been rigged by the Palestinians "with French auspices". French President Francois Hollande has said the objective of the conference is to reaffirm the international community's support for the two-state solution and to ensure that the solution "remains the reference". That is why France took the initiative of a conference on the Middle East. France has tried to breathe new life into the peace process over the past year, holding a preliminary conference in June where the UN, EU, the US and major Arab countries gathered to try to revive the moribund talks. The timing of the conference — days before Donald Trump's inauguration — is not coincidental and is meant to present the new president with a collective international push for peace once he takes office. Though Hollande says he cannot accept the status quo, and that the conflict could not resolve itself, he recognized that peace would ultimately only come through bilateral negotiations. Not only does Netanyahu contend that the conference is rigged by the Palestinians conspiring with the French, but it is also meant, he says, to adopt additional anti-Israel stances. That would refer to the landmark UN Security Council resolution passed last month that called for a halt to Israeli settlement building in Palestinian territory. The conference is not rigged, nor is it colluding against Israel. It is designed to underline global support for a two-state peace deal. A draft communiqué for the meeting calls on both sides to disavow "official voices" on their side that reject the two-state solution. Those voices emanate from the settler movement that holds important political power in Israel as key members of Netanyahu's nationalist coalition push hard for more construction in the West Bank. Some openly oppose a Palestinian state, support expanded settlements and call for Israel to annex most of the territory. It also asks the parties to "refrain from unilateral steps that prejudge the outcome of final status negotiations". This article speaks of the 400,000 Israeli settlers who live in the occupied territories of the West Bank and the 200,000 Israelis who live in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians seek as the capital of their future state. Israel fears this weekend's conference will produce measures that could then be taken to the Security Council. The foreign envoys will probably not draft a new UN resolution to codify plans for two states in international law. Delegates may do nothing more than endorse an international framework for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. But that would be good enough to erode Netanyahu's stances. Netanyahu insists that Israel is not bound by anything decided in Paris. Certainly, he is not obliged to adhere to any of the conference's commitments. But Sunday's world gathering, to be attended by some 70 nations, is aimed at exploring ways to restart long-stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace efforts. It is not a plot hatched to hoodwink Israel nor is it a fix. Netanyahu should not accuse the world of such machinations when it attempts to achieve what he has not.
