Daily Times

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by questioning its impartiality, a claim swiftly denied by Paris poured cold water on Sunday on the Middle East peace initiative advanced by France.

While speaking to the ministers ahead of the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu relayed remarks he had made to French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who was visiting the region ahead of a May 30 international ministerial meeting.

Ayrault’s visit aimed to prepare for the conference that would try to revive Middle East peace talks, frozen since a US-brokered initiative collapsed in April 2014.

Israeli and Palestinian representatives have not been invited to the French meeting to prepare for such a conference mooted for the autumn.

“I told him that the scandalous resolution accepted at UNESCO with France’s support, that does not recognise the bond of thousands of years between the Jewish people and the Temple Mount, casts a shadow over the impartiality of the entire forum France is trying to convene,” Netanyahu said.

He was referring to a resolution adopted last month by the Paris-based UN cultural body on the flashpoint in Al Aqsa mosque compound of Jerusalem, which made no reference to the fact that it is also revered by Jews as the Temple Mount is Judaism’s most sacred site.

Sources close to Ayrault on Sunday said that France “regretted” the resolution by echoing remarks of French Prime Minister Manuel Valls who on Wednesday called it “clumsy” and “unfortunate”, saying it should have been avoided.

However, at the same time, Ayrault rejected Netanyahu’s questioning of French impartiality insisting that an Israeli-Palestinian peace process was imperative to prevent the spread of deadly Islamist violence.

“France has no vested interest but is deeply convinced that if we don’t want to let the ideas of the Islamic State (IS) group prosper in this region, we must do something,” he told reporters at Ben Gurion airport, after meeting both Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.