JERUSALEM — Israel’s overseas minister on Wednesday mentioned that Israel wouldn’t collapse to overseas dictates on its remedy of the Palestinians – in feedback that got here in a gathering along with his Norwegian counterpart coinciding with the thirtieth anniversary of the Oslo peace accords.
The remarks by Foreign Minister Eli Cohen underscored the deterioration of Mideast peace efforts for the reason that historic interim peace deal. Substantive negotiations haven’t taken place in years, and Israel is led by a far-right authorities against Palestinian statehood.
“Israel will not submit to external dictates on the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Cohen mentioned within the assembly with Norwegian Foreign Minister, Anniken Huitfeldt, in response to an announcement from his workplace.
Cohen instructed Huitfeldt that Israel will proceed to work towards normalizing relations with different nations within the Middle East. Israel reached diplomatic accords with 4 Arab nations below the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020 and is now hoping to ascertain official ties with Saudi Arabia.
But in an obvious reference to the Palestinians, who’ve criticized the Abraham Accords, Cohen mentioned “states and actors that don’t participate in expanding and deepening the circle of peace and normalization will simply be left behind and become irrelevant.”
Huitfeldt described her assembly with Cohen as “interesting.”
According to her workplace, she expressed her concern to Cohen over Israeli settlements within the West Bank. The two additionally mentioned the opportunity of renewing Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, she mentioned.
Cohen’s rejection of worldwide enter on the battle got here precisely three many years after Israel and the Palestinians signed an interim peace deal on the White House garden.
The Oslo accords, negotiated secretly in Norway, had been meant to pave the best way to a two-state resolution between Israel and the Palestinians.
“The notion that Israel is not going to accept any externally imposed settlement on the Palestinian issue was essentially the opposite of what the Oslo process reflected,” mentioned Aaron David Miller, an American diplomat who helped negotiate the settlement. Miller is now a senior fellow on the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
A handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat, carried out below the beaming gaze of U.S. President Bill Clinton, marked the signing of the settlement, which created the Palestinian Authority and arrange self-rule areas within the Palestinian territories. The Palestinians search the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip – areas captured by Israel in 1967 – for a future state.
Several rounds of peace talks over time all led to failure, and 30 years later, peace appears extra distant than ever.
Under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right authorities, Israel has stepped up settlement building within the occupied West Bank, with authorities ministers brazenly vowing full annexation of the territory.
The West Bank is within the midst of essentially the most violent stretch of Israel-Palestinian violence in practically 20 years, whereas the Palestinian Authority is weak and unpopular. Meanwhile, the Hamas militant group, which opposes Israel’s existence, has managed Gaza since taking management of the world from the Palestinian Authority in 2007.
Given the present battle, any peacemaking efforts by the 2 sides aren’t “anywhere near being ready for prime time,” Miller mentioned.
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