What it takes to make peace

France recently said that its patience with Israel, which continues to frustrate through its inaction on peace with the Palestinians, was running out and that if its last-ditch effort to implement the two-state solution fails, it will have no choice but to recognise a Palestinian state.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius recently told an annual gathering of foreign diplomats posted in Paris that “we cannot let the two-state solution disintegrate. It is our responsibility as a UN Security Council member and a power seeking peace” not to let this rare opportunity to attain peace in the Middle East slip away.

The French official also disclosed that France will begin preparing in the “coming weeks” for an international conference that would bring Israelis, Palestinians and major countries interested in seeing this issue solved together in a final bid to achieve a negotiated two-state solution.

If this last attempt hits a wall, Fabius told the diplomats accredited to Paris, “we need to face our responsibility by recognising a Palestinian state”.

France would be only the 137th country, of the 193 UN member states and two non-member states, to recognise the state of Palestine, a step it could have taken long ago.

Be it as may, if this could be a bargaining card, a reason that would prod Israel into action, it is welcome any time.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ready to pounce on anybody just mentioning peace, immediately called the French initiative “counter-productive”.

He also called for a more “sober” approach to the Palestinian conflict, which to him must mean endless make-believe negotiations with no concrete results in sight, meant to perpetuate a situation by now familiar to those following the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ever since “peace talks” started, more so since the US floated the two-state solution in April 2014.

Israel can be made to act responsibly only when the international community overcomes its “shyness” and calls Israel by its name: a colonising country that has been oppressing the people under its cruel occupation for well over half a century, an apartheid, unjust regime that needs to acknowledge the humanity and rights of the Palestinians.

Countless UN resolutions attest to that, and set the course for peace to finally descend on the holy land.

Giving the Palestinians their rightful entitlement to a state of their own will ensure belated justice to the people under occupation and buy Israel the peace of mind it claims it wants.

Short of that, no walls or laws will make Israelis live free and safe.