Netanyahu to French PM: Hold direct Israeli-Palestinian talks in Paris without preconditions

"I'm ready to clear my schedule and fly to Paris tomorrow," Netanyahu says.

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Updated: MAY 24, 2016 09:31
Netanyahu to French PM: Hold direct Israeli-Palestinian talks in Paris without preconditions
France should hold direct Israeli-Palestinian talks at its June 3 parley in Paris on the frozen peace process, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his French counterpart when the two met in Jerusalem on Monday afternoon.
“If you really want to help launch peace, then help us launch direct negotiations with [Palestinian Authority President] Mahmoud Abbas,” Netanyahu said, suggesting the French amend their new peace initiative so that it becomes a platform for such talks.
“I’m ready to clear my schedule and fly to Paris tomorrow. Well, I think tomorrow we’re expanding the government, but the day after tomorrow,” Netanyahu quipped, referring to ongoing coalition negotiations with Yisrael Beytenu.
“And it’s an open offer. I will clear my calendar, and I hope that this is taken up by you and by the Palestinians.”
“Israelis and Palestinians have suffered too much. It’s time to sit down together and work out our differences so that peace may reign at long last,” Netanyahu told French Prime Minister Manuel Valls.
Valls told Netanyahu he would relay his offer to French President Francois Hollande.
“We are in favor of anything that contributes to peace and the resumption of talks,” Valls said.
The French premier is on his second day of a three-day trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories.
High on Valls agenda is a June 3 Paris meeting of ministers from some 20 countries, in which a new French peace initiative would be launched.
Israelis and Palestinians are not invited to the meeting, in which the ministers will plan a large peace conference in the fall and discuss trust building measures to help lay the groundwork for renewed talks. The last peace process, which was brokered by the US, fell apart in 2014. US Secretary of State John Kerry has said he plans to attend the conference.
The Palestinians have welcomed the internationalized process which they hope will set a framework for the process that will included a timeline for an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines and a halt of West Bank settlement activity and Jewish building in east Jerusalem.
Netanyahu has opposed it, because he believes it allows the Palestinians to bypass talks by turning to the international community.
“The Palestinian leadership doesn’t see the French initiative as an inducement to compromise, but rather as a way to avoid it. In fact, the Palestinian prime minister, [Rami] Hamdallah, let slip the other day his hope for an imposed timetable, rather than a negotiated peace,” Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu explained this to French Foreign Minister Jean Marc Ayrault, who visited last week. At his office in Jerusalem on Monday, he told Valls he would support an amended version of the initiative.
“I would gladly accept a different French initiative, and here’s the one important change,” Netanyahu said. “This initiative can still take place in Paris, because that would be a marvelous place to sign a peace accord.
“It can still be called the French initiative, because you would host this genuine effort for peace, but here’s the difference: I will sit alone directly with President Abbas in the Élysée Palace, or anywhere else that you choose,” Netanyahu said.
Every issue would be on the table, Netanyahu said. This would include mutual recognition, incitement, borders, refugees and settlements.
“There is no issue too complex to solve if both sides are willing to talk to each other. And I am more than willing; I am eager,” said Netanyahu.
He explained that he knows first hand what it means to fight a war.
“I was injured in battle; I lost a brother; I lost many friends in battle. Israel wants nothing more than peace. And I hope you encourage President Abbas to accept this French initiative: direct negotiations without preconditions, between the Israeli prime minister [and] the Palestinian president in Paris,” Netanyahu said.
“Peace just does not get achieved through international conferences, UN-style. It doesn’t get to fruition through international diktats or committees from countries around the world who are sitting and seeking to decide our fate and our security when they have no direct stake in it,” Netanyahu said.
Israel, he said, is committed to a vision of two states for two people. What he means by this, Netanyahu told Valls, is a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes a Jewish state.
Netanyahu later declared in the Knesset plenum, “I’m willing to take bold steps with the help of regional partners.”
Earlier in the day Valls  told President Reuven Rivlin, Valls said, “You can rest assured that France is sincere in its intentions and desire to try and help Israelis and Palestinians once and for all find a way to a long-awaited peace.” Valls also met Monday with Opposition leader Isaac Herzog. He then traveled to Bethlehem where he visited the Church of the Nativity. On Tuesday he scheduled to meet PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah in Ramallah before flying back to France.
The French premier is known as a friend of Israel and for taking a strong stand against anti-Semitism. He has also spoken out against his country’s vote in favor of a UNESCO resolution that ignored Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.
Netanyahu thanked him for those efforts during their meeting.
“I know of your friendship to Israel and your commitment to Franco-Israeli relations, your stalwart position against anti-Semitism and that of Francois Hollande,” Netanyahu said.
“The reason that this [UNESCO] vote was so troubling for us is that it implies that the Jewish people have no right to be here. And I think that remains the core of the conflict, the refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish people to have a nation-state in their ancestral homeland. I hope you encourage other nations that voted for this outrageous resolution to follow your lead and admit it was an error. And of course, the most important thing is that it doesn’t happen again.”