Macron asks Netanyahu to make gestures to break peace impasse

French President Emmanuel Macron told Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday that he needed to make gestures to the Palestinians to enable to break the impasse between the two sides.

Netanyayu was in Paris ahead of a meeting with EU foreign ministers on Monday when they will try present a unified front after US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

While condemning all acts of terrorism against Israel, Macron said that he told Netanyahu that he was against Trump’s decision, which was a “dangerous threat to peace.” Suggesting that a freeze of settlement construction could be s first step, Macron said:

I asked Prime Minister Netanyuhu to make some courageous gestures towards the Palestinians to get out of the current impasse

He reaffirmed that France believed that a two-state solution was the only viable option to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

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European countries, like most nations, have criticised the Trump administration’s decision last week which reversed decades of US policy. Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be its capital, while the Palestinians want the eastern part of the city as capital of a future independent state.

Netanyahu responded to Macron by saying that once the Palestinians recognised the “reality” that Jerusalem was the capital of Israel, it would enable peace efforts sooner.

“The most important thing about peace is first of all to recognise that the other side has a right to exist,” he said. “One of the manifestations of this refusal is the mere refusal to sit down with Israel.

“Here is the gesture I offer .. to Mr Abbas to sit down and negotiate peace. That’s a gesture for peace. Nothing could be simpler,” he said, referring to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Macron said that he did not expect any breakthrough in the short-term, but it was important to see what a proposed US peace initiative expected early next year would look like before writing Washington off as a mediator in the conflict.

“I don’t think we need more initiatives,” Macron said, ruling out a new French mediation effort after holding a peace conference in Paris last January.

Read: Erdogan and Macron to urge US to turn back on Jerusalem decision

Most countries consider East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed after capturing it in a 1967 war, to be occupied territory, and say the status of the city should be left to be decided at future Israeli-Palestinian talks.

While the international community has almost unanimously disagreed with Donald Trump’s announcement, reports suggest that the announcement was done with the pre-agreement of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, with the Saudi Arabia going as far as, allegedly, stating to the Palestinian President to accept a village on the outskirts of Jerusalem as the alternative Palestinian capital.

Since the announcement, Saudi Arabia’s royal court has sent notices to the nation’s media outlets to limit the airtime given to protests against Trump’s announcement.

Emboldened by Trump’s annoucement, Israeli housing Minister Yoav Galant decided on Friday to promote a plan to build 14,000 new settlement units in the occupied Jerusalem.

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