France Plans Mideast Peace Effort, and Recognition of Palestine if It Fails

By RICK GLADSTONE and STEVEN ERLANGERJAN. 29, 2016

UNITED NATIONS — France said Friday that it would organize an international conference aimed at resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that France would recognize Palestine as an independent state if that effort failed.

The announcement, made by Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius in Paris, was welcomed by Palestinian leaders, who have been expressing concern that their grievances and quest for full independent statehood have been marginalized by the Syria war, the European migrant crisis and other related issues.

But the announcement was criticized by Israeli officials, who were quoted in Israeli news media as saying Mr. Fabius had essentially made a threat that would encourage the Palestinians not to negotiate seriously.

“France will engage in the coming weeks in the preparation of an international conference bringing together the parties and their main partners — American, European, Arab — notably to preserve and make happen the two-state solution,” Mr. Fabius said. Should that effort fail, he said, “We need to face our responsibilities by recognizing the Palestinian state.”

Israel has grown increasingly concerned over steps in Europe and elsewhere that validate Palestinian statehood without a peace agreement. An official recognition by the French government would be the most significant so far.

In December 2014, the European Parliament adopted a resolution recognizing Palestinian statehood in principle. In October 2014, Sweden became the first European Union member to officially recognize Palestine as an independent state. The United Nations General Assembly made Palestine a nonmember observer state in 2012, which gave the Palestinians a way to join international organizations like the International Criminal Court.

Riyad H. Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, said Friday that an international conference was one of several strategies under consideration. “We don’t want this to be a year where people in our area are more depressed and more frustrated,” he said.

The French proposal was reported as other frictions were surfacing between Israel and its most important Western allies, adding to its isolation over both the Palestinian issue and Israel’s criticism of the recently completed nuclear deal with Iran.

In the United States, some pro-Israel groups criticized reissued customs guidelines that say products made in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel should not be labeled “made in Israel.”

The guidelines were originally promulgated in 1995 to strengthen Palestinian exports. American officials said they were reissued this month in response to complaints about mislabeling, and were in no way meant to discourage purchases of Israeli goods.

But to supporters of Israel, the timing was particularly problematic, given recent gains by the international boycott movement that aims to pressure Israel to end the occupation. In November, the European Union implemented regulations requiring that labels specify if

Omri Ceren, managing director for press and strategy at the Israel Project in Washington, an advocacy group, said the reissuance of the customs regulations in the current climate “unfortunately looks very much like an anti-Israel broadside.”

In another irritant that came to light on Friday, leaked documents attributed to Edward J. Snowden, the former American intelligence contractor, showed that the United States and Britain have monitored secret drone flights and communications by the Israeli Air Force in a hacking operation dating to 1998.

Israel expressed disappointment at the disclosures, published by The Intercept, an online publication associated with Glenn Greenwald, who has collaborated with Mr. Snowden, and by the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel.

Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister of national infrastructure and energy, and a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet, played down the issue but said lessons would be learned.

“I do not think that this is the deepest kingdom of secrets, but it is certainly something that should not happen, which is unpleasant,” he told Israel’s Army Radio. “We will now have to look and consider changing the encryption, certainly.”

Mr. Steinitz said Israel was not surprised by the hacking. “We know that the Americans spy on the whole world, and also on us, also on their friends,” he said.

“But still, it is disappointing, inter alia, because going back decades already, we have not spied nor collected intelligence nor hacked encryptions in the United States.”

The Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot said the National Security Agency in the United States and its British counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters, which monitor electronic and other communications, had decrypted Israeli communications on air force missions over Gaza, Iran and Syria.

The spy operation, under the code-name Anarchist, was run out of a base in Cyprus and targeted other countries in the region, including Egypt, Iran, Syria and Turkey, according to The Intercept.

Rick Gladstone reported from the United Nations, and Steven Erlanger from Jerusalem.