“[T]he time has come for Israelis, Palestinians and the international community to read the writing on the wall: The status quo is untenable. Keeping another people under indefinite occupation undermines the security and the future of both Israelis and Palestinians.” —UN General Secretary Ban Ki-MoonOn Friday January 29th, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Laurent Fabius announced France’s proposal to organize a new series of peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian delegates with the aim of reaching an agreement on the two-state solution, under which both Israel and Palestine would enjoy sovereignty and territorial integrity. Fabius made clear that it is France’s “responsibility as a permanent member of the UN Security Council” to take action if the two-state solution falls apart, and that if peace talks fail once again, France would unilaterally recognize the State of Palestine, which currently holds non-member observer status at the United Nations. Since the last round of peace talks held under U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry broke down in 2014, there has been no meaningful attempt to renew negotiations between Israel and Palestine.Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed France's effort “to resume the peace process and resolve the Palestinian issue based on a two-state solution,” and urged the Security Council to pass an enduring resolution that could safeguard the Palestinian people. He specified that “peace negotiations must have a time limit and guarantee the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.”Speaking with his cabinet last Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that while Israel will not reject peace negotiations, France’s “threat” to recognize Palestine would illegitimize a potential international conference to improve relations and give “an incentive to the Palestinians to come along and not compromise.” At present, 136 UN member states recognize the State of Palestine. In 2014 Sweden became the first EU member state to do so. The conflict between Israel and Palestine has been ongoing and brutally violent— claiming thousands of lives in war, terrorist attacks, and bombings over the past 70 years.Concrete solutions to such a passionate collision of identities, histories, and political ideologies will only come with the marriage of concerned citizens expressing a true desire for peace and the forethought of leaders and diplomats willing to maneuver between legal and political solutions—what Luis Moreno Ocampo, the first Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and Kathryn Sikkink, the well-respected human rights scholar of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, refer to as the “Strategic Interaction Approach.” This entails juggling both legal and political realities, communicating in a tit for tat manner—in other words, to abstain from continuous punishment, and rather engage after positive developments. The strategy is “iterative” and “interactive,” and may be facilitated by new institutions like the ICC that have been developed over time thanks to the normative concerns of advocates of peace and justice. Palestine became a party to the Rome Statute, the founding document of the ICC, in January 2015. The current Prosecutor of the Court, Fatou Bensouda, has since opened a preliminary examination on the situation—meaning both with regard to Israeli and Palestinian activities—in Palestine and will now “consider issues of jurisdiction, admissibility and the interests of justice.” In the next weeks, the world will observe how France’s ultimatum will play out and to what extent Israel, Palestine, their allies, and regional powers in the Middle East will react and engage. If there is ever to be peace, all parties must oppose terrorism, respect international law, as well as work and behave always with the well-being and rights of innocent civilians in mind. This article was written by Anthony Comeau. Please send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Gigi Ibrahim via Flickr