UN chief: Israel, Palestinians must step back from the brink

UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged Israel and the Palestinians on Monday to step back from the brink and return to peace talks before time runs out.

“The Israeli and Palestinian people face a shared fate on shared land. There is no erasing the other,” Ban told a UN committee on Palestinian rights.

He called “on the parties to step back from the brink and find the path of peace before hope and time run out.”

His comments reflected international alarm over the spate of violent attacks in East Jerusalem and the deadlock over peace talks that are fueling fear of another flareup after the 50-day Israel-Hamas war.

The lack of peace prospects coupled with Israel’s ongoing campaign to build settlements on occupied territory are chipping away at the stated UN goal of a two-state solution in which Israel and a new state of Palestine would coexist.

Ban said Israelis and Palestinians appeared to be “losing any sense of connection” and that “when that goes, it is not far over the precipice.”

With no political solution in sight, governments and parliaments in Europe are moving toward Palestinian recognition, with France’s National Assembly set to debate a non-binding resolution on Friday followed by a vote on December 2.

The Palestinians have yet to formally submit to the UN Security Council a UN draft resolution calling for an Israeli withdrawal from all occupied territory in 2016.

Despite Palestinian statements that the text would come up for a vote in November, Palestinian representative Riyad Mansour told AFP no date had been set for the draft to be discussed at the 14-member council.

France meanwhile is leading a European initiative to try to agree on a new draft resolution that would set out parameters for a return to Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, diplomats said.

It remains unclear whether that effort will yield results.

“We, as the international community, must assume responsibility for what is a collective failure to advance a political solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” said Ban.

“The mindless cycle of destruction must end. The virtuous circle of peace must begin.”

Ban also said the international community’s failure to advance a political solution to the conflict is spurring governments and parliaments to take action to recognize the state of Palestine — and “that momentum will grow…”

“Indeed — as we see around the world — governments and parliaments are taking action,” Ban said.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in a statement read at the commemoration, welcomed changes in popular sentiment in the West that have reached “official political levels,” starting with Sweden’s recognition of the state of Palestine and the overwhelming motions supporting recognition by parliaments in Britain, Ireland and Spain.

He said these actions, and upcoming votes in France and other European countries, are “positive developments which enhance the opportunities for peace and security and stability in the region.”

“Does Israel, the occupying power, understand all of the messages in this regard?,” Abbas asked.

Abbas accused Israel of trying to alter or erase the Palestinian and Christian and Muslim presence in Jerusalem and of taking measures aimed at turning East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state, into a Jewish area.

Ban warned that incitement and provocative acts at the holy sites in Jerusalem “are fanning the flames of conflict far beyond the holy city.”