European, Arab and Islamic nations have launched an initiative to strengthen support for a Palestinian state and prepare for a future after the war in Gaza and escalating conflict in Lebanon, Norway's foreign minister said Friday.
Espen Barth Eide told The Associated Press that "there is a growing consensus in the international community from Western countries, from Arab countries, from the Global South, that we need to establish a Palestinian Authority, a Palestinian government, a Palestinian state — and the Palestinian state has to be recognized."
Eide said many issues need to be addressed, including the security interests of Israel and the Palestinians, recognition and normalization of relations after decades of conflict and the demobilization of Hamas as a military group.
"These are pieces of a bigger puzzle," Norway's chief diplomat said. "And you can't just come in there with one of these pieces, because it only works if all the pieces are laid in place."
But even if the puzzle is completed, it's unlikely to gain traction with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Still, Eide believes that after decades of failed or stalled negotiations, "we need to take a new approach" to achieving an independent Palestinian state.
To accelerate work on these issues, Eide said almost 90 countries attended a meeting Thursday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly's current gathering of world leaders. He and Saudi Arabia's foreign minister co-chaired the session to launch "The Global Alliance for the Implementation of a Palestinian State and a Two-State Solution."
"We have to see how we can come out of this deadlock and try to use this deep crisis also as an opportunity to move forward," Eide told a U.N. Security Council meeting on Gaza later Friday.
Norway is the guarantor of the 1993 Oslo Accords, hailed as a breakthrough in the decades-long conflict between Arabs and Jews, which created the Palestinian Authority and set up self-rule areas in the Palestinian Authority. Eide said more than 30 years later, Israel's "occupation" is continuing, and there are no negotiations leading to a final settlement and an independent Palestinian state, which led to Norway's decision in May to recognize a Palestinian state.
Eide brought up the alliance again Saturday during his address to the annual meeting of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, stressing that "while cease-fires in Gaza and Lebanon are most urgently needed, ending hostilities must not be confused with lasting solutions."
He again called on the 44 U.N. member nations that haven't done so to recognize the state of Palestine and allow it to become a full member of the United Nations.
And he called on "everyone who can, to help to build Palestine's institutions, and on regional actors to help embed a political settlement in a broader regional framework."
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud told the U.N. Security Council on Friday that his country, the joint Islamic-Arab ministerial committee, Norway and the European Union launched the alliance "because we feel responsible to act to change the reality of the conflict without delay."
He told the assembly Saturday that the coalition aimed "to promote the two-state solution," calling on all countries to join the group and to recognize the Palestinians as an independent state.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell urged all countries to take practical measures "to bring about the free Palestine next to a secure Israel."
First meetings will be in Saudi Arabia and Belgium
Eide said this new effort is built on the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, "but updated to today's reality."
The 2002 initiative, endorsed by the Arab League and the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation, offered Israel normalized relations in exchange for a full withdrawal from territories captured in 1967.
