Dozens of ministers gathered at a United Nations conference on Monday to urge the international community to work toward a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, with Israel and the United States boycotting the event.

The 193-member UN General Assembly decided in September last year that such a conference would be held in 2025. Hosted by France and Saudi Arabia, the conference was postponed in June due to the Israel-Iran war.

“We must ensure that it does not become another exercise in well-meaning rhetoric,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in opening remarks.

Days before the conference, French President Emmanuel Macron announced he would formally recognize Palestinian statehood in September, provoking strong opposition from Israel and the United States.

Luxembourg hinted Monday that it could follow France and recognize a Palestinian state in September, with the possibility that other countries could announce similar plans when the conference resumes Tuesday.

France is hoping Britain will follow its lead. More than 200 British members of parliament on Friday voiced support for the idea, but Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that recognition of a Palestinian state “must be part of a wider plan.”

For decades, most UN members have supported a two-state solution with Israel and a Palestinian state existing side-by-side.

However, the establishment of a Palestinian state and its would-be borders appear to be increasingly shrinking after more than 21 months of devastating war in Gaza sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 terror onslaught, the ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and Israeli officials declaring designs to annex the territory along with the Gaza Strip.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said it would be an “illusion to think that you can get to a lasting ceasefire without having an outline of what’s going to happen in Gaza after the end of the war and having a political horizon.”

Beyond advocating for encouraging the mass migration of Palestinians from Gaza, Israel has offered little detail of what it envisions for a post-war Strip and has pushed back against international calls for the Palestinian Authority to gain a foothold in the enclave.

Barrot told reporters at the UN that while........

© The Times of Israel