Conference on Palestinian Statehood Postponed Amid Israel-Iran Fighting
A U.N. conference set for next week to explore the creation of a Palestinian state has been postponed because of the fighting between Israel and Iran, President Emmanuel Macron of France says.
For Mr. Macron, the meeting's co-chairman alongside Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, the postponement delays a delicate decision on French recognition of a Palestinian state. In a move that infuriated Israel, the French president had indicated that he would formally do so at the conference.
Speaking on Friday evening, Mr. Macron said the postponement would be brief with a new date to be set in the coming days. It was needed because leaders in the region, including Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, would be unable to travel because of the fighting.
'For logistical, physical, security and political reasons, they could not get to New York,' Mr. Macron said. But he added that the movement toward a two-state outcome symbolized by the conference was 'unstoppable.'
That view is not shared by the United States or Israel, both of which had indicated that they would not attend the conference. The United States, in a cable a few days ago that was first reported by Reuters, urged countries to shun the talks, which it said would 'coerce Israel during a war, thereby supporting its enemies.'
France, like a growing number of European states, including many that have previously supported Israel, has taken the view that the most right-wing government in Israel's history is leading the country down a destructive blind alley at devastating cost in Palestinian lives. This conviction has driven France to seek a political framework for the aftermath of the war in Gaza that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has persistently declined to outline.
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