France wants bigger role in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts

France’s top diplomat traveled to the Middle East over the weekend to take a crack at solving the seemingly unsolvable Israeli-Palestinian conflict, offering a new way forward that ­includes a possible U.N. resolution setting out broad terms for ending the impasse and an offer of help from the Europeans and Arab ­nations.

 

Israeli leaders were hostile to the French proposal, while the Palestinians were polite but distant. Palestinian Foreign Minister ­Riyad al-Maliki said in a joint news conference with his French counterpart that they would do what they could to support the effort, according to the Maan news agency.

 

U.S. diplomats have been vague. At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing last week, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, did not answer directly when asked whether the United States would veto a French resolution to support the creation of a Palestinian state.

 

Read More: France wants bigger role in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts – The Washington Post