PARIS — France is trying to overcome resistance and rally international support for a draft UN plan setting a two-year deadline for peace talks on Palestinian statehood. Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius is meeting in Paris the secretary-general of the Arab League, Egyptian and Palestinian ministers, and former Israeli President Shimon Peres. Fabius wants support for a draft UN resolution that the French hope would be a catalyst for peace talks. The French, seeking a higher-profile role in Middle East diplomacy, see their draft as more palatable than a Jordanian-backed resolution also under discussion. European countries are divided over the French plan, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn't like it. Fabius discussed the draft Monday with US Secretary of State John Kerry, holding talks around Europe on the Mideast. With peace talks exhausted, pressure building on the streets and increasing international support, the Palestinians are hoping the time has finally come for a UN resolution on ending the Israeli occupation. Jordan is expected to submit an Arab-backed draft resolution to the UN Security Council as early as Wednesday, seeking a two-year timetable for Israel to withdraw its forces from the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem. Washington is all but certain to veto any resolution setting a deadline for an Israeli withdrawal, and Secretary of State John Kerry has been meeting European allies and senior Israeli and Palestinian officials this week in a bid to head off a diplomatic crisis. But after the latest round of US-backed peace talks broke down in April, and with increasing violence in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, experts say the Palestinians see a UN resolution as the lone way forward. A resolution is the “only option left to the Palestinian leadership,” political analyst Abdel Majid Sweilem said. “Any further talks must be carried out on a new basis, with an internationally agreed timetable,” he said, adding that only the pressure of a deadline would force Israel to make concessions to a two-state solution. Successive rounds of peace talks have failed to resolve the key questions in the conflict — the creation of a Palestinian state with defined borders, the fate of Palestinian refugees, and the status of Jerusalem. Frustration among the Palestinians has grown, fuelled by the continued expansion of Jewish settlements in Palestinian lands and calls from rightwing groups to expand Jewish rights at a Jerusalem holy site. — Agencies
