“The French initiative caught us unprepared. We didn’t expect them to surprise us like that,” admitted a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s inner circle speaking on condition of anonymity in response to the diplomatic initiative announced by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Jan. 29. The initiative itself is quite problematic, at least as far as Israel is concerned.

Briefing French ambassadors a few weeks before leaving office, Fabius said that France will be taking steps over the next few weeks to convene an international conference with the participation of the United States, Europe and Arab states. The purpose would be to ensure that the two-state solution remains a viable and tenable option. As he put it, “Unfortunately, Israeli settlement construction continues. … We must not let the two-state solution unravel.”

This is not the first time that France has presented an initiative to advance a two-state solution in the past few years. What distinguishes this particular effort, however, is the ultimatum accompanying the proposal: If the conference fails, France will unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state. This means that the international pressure Israel has faced over the past few years, because of diplomatic stalemates stemming from Netanyahu governments, has risen to a whole new level.

France is a country friendly to Israel. It is also a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and in the nuclear negotiations with Iran, it took an even tougher stance than the Americans over the timing for lifting sanctions. The obstacles that the French put in the way were, among other things, a consequence of talks that Fabius had had with Netanyahu when the prime minister was still lobbying to block the agreement, which was ultimately reached last July.