Paris is hosting Mideast peace talks without Israelis, Palestinians, or the Trump team


On Sunday, diplomats from 70 nations — not including representatives of Israel, Palestine, or the incoming Donald Trump administration — met in Paris "to officially restate their commitment to the two-state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The goal was to demonstrate to Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the breadth of international backing of a Palestinian state, but Netanyahu dismissed the Paris meeting as "futile" and "rigged" against Israel. "This conference is among the last twitches of the world of yesterday," he said. "Tomorrow will look different and that tomorrow is very close."
Outgoing U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry joined the talks, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas initially planned to attend before his schedule changed. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault at the conference echoed Abbas' Saturday critique of Trump's promise to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. "When you are president of the United States, you cannot take such a stubborn and such a unilateral view on this issue," he argued. "You have to try to create the conditions for peace."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The Israelis and Palestinians have not engaged in peace negotiations with each other since 2014. "It is not a question of dictating to the parties," French President Francois Hollande maintained on Sunday. "Only direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians can lead to peace. No one will do it in their place."
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
-
Canadian man dies in ICE custody
Speed Read A Canadian citizen with permanent US residency died at a federal detention center in Miami
-
GOP races to revise megabill after Senate rulings
Speed Read A Senate parliamentarian ruled that several changes to Medicaid included in Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" were not permissible
-
Supreme Court lets states ax Planned Parenthood funds
Speed Read The court ruled that Planned Parenthood cannot sue South Carolina over the state's effort to deny it funding
-
Trump plans Iran talks, insists nuke threat gone
Speed Read 'The war is done' and 'we destroyed the nuclear,' said President Trump
-
Trump embraces NATO after budget vow, charm offensive
Speed Read The president reversed course on his longstanding skepticism of the trans-Atlantic military alliance
-
Trump judge pick told DOJ to defy courts, lawyer says
Speed Read Emil Bove, a top Justice Department official nominated by Trump for a lifetime seat, stands accused of encouraging government lawyers to mislead the courts and defy judicial orders
-
Mamdani upsets Cuomo in NYC mayoral primary
Speed Read Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani beat out Andrew Cuomo in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary
-
Supreme Court clears third-country deportations
Speed Read The court allowed Trump to temporarily resume deporting migrants to countries they aren't from