Daily Times

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday dismissed this weekend’s Middle East peace conference in Paris, with his government refusing to play any role in the meeting.

Sunday’s conference to be attended by some 70 nations is aimed at exploring ways to restart long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts. Israel rejects the conference but Netanyahu says he is willing to hold bilateral talks.

The Palestinians have welcomed the multilateral approach, saying years of negotiations have not ended Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. “It’s a rigged conference, rigged by the Palestinians with French auspices to adopt additional anti-Israel stances,” Netanyahu said while meeting Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende in Jerusalem. “This pushes peace backwards. It’s not going to obligate us. It’s a relic of the past. It’s a last gasp of the past before the future sets in.”

Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts have been at a standstill since a US-led initiative collapsed in April 2014. The conference comes on the heels of a landmark UN Security Council resolution passed on December 23 calling for a halt to Israeli settlement building in Palestinian territory. In a rare move, the United States declined to use its veto and abstained, allowing the measure to pass 14-0. Israel fears this weekend’s conference will produce measures that could then be taken to the Security Council and approved before January 20 — when Donald Trump takes over as US president. Trump, who had called for US President Barack Obama’s administration to veto the December 23 resolution, has signalled far more favourable policy towards Israel. Obama’s administration became increasingly frustrated with settlement building in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, which Israel occupied in 1967.