“The French initiative will die a slow death over the next few months, because the people who put it together are unfamiliar with the reality in Judea and Samaria and the complexity of life here,” said Oded Ravivi, head of the Efrat Regional Council. “It is impossible to make those kinds of decisions unilaterally, without first being acquainted with the conflict itself and the people involved. That is why it will end in failure.” Such was Ravivi's assessment one day after the European Council officially adopted the French peace initiative June 20. The move added to growing international pressure on Israel to renew the diplomatic process.
Ravivi, a lieutenant colonel in the Israeli army reserves and a member of the Likud Party, is convinced that the foreign ministers who gathered in Paris are, more than simply, inadequate to the task. In his eyes, they completely overlooked the heart of the problem. As he described it to Al-Monitor at his Efrat home in the Etzion settlement bloc, south of Bethlehem, “The foreign ministers who met in Paris do not let their ambassadors come and see the situation on the ground in Judea and Samaria, because it is occupied territory. How can they even make decisions, and impose them from above, without first understanding the complexity of the situation, the dynamic that exists here and the circumstances in which the two populations live alongside each other? I would suggest to them that they come here and talk to the people who live in Judea and Samaria. Peace will not come through unilateral initiatives.”
Al-Monitor: But the parties themselves aren’t talking, and there hasn’t been a diplomatic process for years. Isn't it natural for the international community to push in the direction of a two-state solution?
Ravivi: In my opinion, the pressure that they are exerting on us actually serves the interests of the extremists, not the centrists, either on our side or on the other side. What do the foreign ministers who met in Paris say? We are giving you time to conduct negotiations, and if you don’t work it out, we will force a unilateral arrangement on you. But they have no concept of what is actually happening on the ground here.
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