The French initiative to deploy an international observer force on the Temple Mount, as reported Oct. 17 in the French daily Le Figaro, brings to mind an old English joke about an initiative to change the driving directions in the United Kingdom and adapt them to those of most of the Western world. At a British government debate on the matter, one of the ministers said that such a revolution should be implemented gradually and not imposed on the public in one fell swoop. To start with, only trucks would drive on the right side of the road, then buses and taxis. If the experiment was successful, the change would be applied to all vehicles.
Until the last visit by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius to Jerusalem and Ramallah in June, France was leading a strategic move at the UN Security Council for recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital. But instead of leveraging the current crisis of the stabbing intifada to advance a permanent arrangement between Israelis and Palestinians, Paris is offering the sides another short-acting sedative.
