Norway and the European Union announced on Wednesday they will convene an “extraordinary session” at the end of the month in an attempt to push the “two-state solution” to end the Israel-Palestinian Arab conflict.
Norway’s Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide and the EU’s High Representative Federica Mogherini said in a statement on Wednesday they had decided to convene the session of the international donor group for “Palestine”, the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC).
The meeting will be held in Brussels on January 31, according to the announcement.
“There is an urgent need to bring all parties together to discuss measures to speed up efforts that can underpin a negotiated two-state solution,” the statement said.
“Furthermore it is necessary to enable the Palestinian Authority to execute full control over Gaza, based on the Cairo agreement from October 12, 2017,” it added, referring to the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation agreement.
The session follows U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital last month.
The European Union rejected Trump’s move, saying they stuck by their view that the city’s status should be settled by negotiation.
Mogherini had previously voiced alarm at Trump’s decision, warning that it could take the situation “backwards to even darker times”.
The Trump administration’s approach to the Palestinians represents what Mideast experts and Israel advocates are describing as a paradigm shift in Washington, D.C.—acknowledging that Palestinian rejectionism lies at the root of the Arab-Israeli conflict, rather than reflexively blaming the Jewish state for the impasse in negotiations.
The purported paradigm shift comes as the current Palestinian leadership is rejecting American involvement in the peace process. Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday that President Donald Trump “took Jerusalem off the table” through the recent U.S. recognition of that city as Israel’s capital. Abbas declared, “We won’t take orders from anyone. We told Trump we will never accept his [peace] plan. His deal of the century is the slap in the face of the century, and we will not accept it.”
The PA leader vowed he would never give up on efforts to declare a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem, and described Israel as “a colonial project that has nothing to do with Judaism.”
Abbas was responding not only to Trump’s policy change on Jerusalem but to the American leader’s recent tweet questioning U.S. financial assistance to the PA. Trump had asked, “With the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?”
In the 25 years since Israel and the Palestinians signed the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn, Palestinian terror attacks have killed more than 1,600 Israelis and injured thousands more. The most recent Israeli victim was 35-year-old father of six Raziel Shevah, killed in a drive-by shooting near his home on Jan. 9.
Illustrating a recent shift in American rhetoric on such incidents, U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman tweeted following the attack, “Hamas praises the killers and PA laws will provide them financial rewards. Look no further to why there is no peace.”
“Dozens of Congressmen and Knesset members from across the political spectrum are embracing this new paradigm for ending this conflict and these steps…are welcome aspects of a new era in relations between the U.S. and Israel,” Member of Knesset Oded Forer (Yisrael Beiteinu) told JNS.
The “new paradigm” was also apparent last February—less than a month into the nascent administration’s tenure—when Trump broke with decades of unquestioned U.S. support for a two-state solution by saying at a White House press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “I’m looking at two states and one state. I am very happy with the one that both parties like.”
U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) told JNS that he is “encouraged by President Trump and the administration’s strong support for Israel. Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is long overdue…This demonstrates a clear break from the Obama administration’s policy.”
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