Israelis and Palestinians snub France Middle East peace talks

A French-led conference aimed at reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is to begin in Paris later and will bring together officials from the Middle East Quartet, the UN, Arab League and other countries. Israel and the Palestinians will not participate, however.

Israel has rejected the meeting and called for direct negotiations instead. The last round of talks between Israel and the Palestinians came to an end amid acrimony in April 2014.

The Palestinians accused Israel of reneging on a deal to free prisoners, while Israel said it would not continue negotiations after the Palestinians decided to bring the Islamist Hamas movement into a unity government.

Diplomats said Friday's meeting would bring together all the economic incentives and other guarantees that various countries had offered in previous years to create an agenda for an autumn peace conference.

French diplomatic sources said the talks would focus on the 2002 Saudi peace initiative, which offered Arab recognition of Israel in return for the creation of a Palestinian state in territories occupied by Israel since 1967.

On Monday Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknlwledges that the Saudi plan included "positive elements". But the managing director of Israel's foreign ministry, Dore Gold, likened the French talks to the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement, which carved up the Middle East between colonial powers, and insisted only direct talks could resolve the conflict.

"This effort utterly failed then and will completely fail today," he said. "The only way to get a stable regional arrangement that will allow us to create real peace in the Middle East is if the parties of the region come to understandings between them."

On Wednesday Mr Netanyahu called for "direct negotiations without preconditions between the sides".

US Secretary of State John Kerry will attend the talks but a US official was quoted as saying that the US did not have any new proposals to put forward at this stage.