Palestinian officials welcome French peace conference proposal

Palestinian officials on Thursday welcomed a French proposal to hold an international Middle East peace conference, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed.

"We definitely welcome the French initiative, we see it as a major possibility for challenging the status quo," Husam Zomlot, an advisor to Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, told reporters.

Zomlot, however, said the Palestinians insisted on their call for a United Nations resolution against Israeli settlement building ahead of any renewed peace process.

"Nothing will convince us that we should not go to the United Nations Security Council over settlements," said Zomlot, who is a senior official in Abbas's Fatah party.

Last month, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called Israel's settlement activities "an affront to the Palestinian people and to the international community".

The UN chief said that Palestinians are being driven to violence by a "profound sense of alienation and despair".

"Palestinian frustration is growing under the weight of a half century of occupation and the paralysis of the peace process," he said.

"As oppressed peoples have demonstrated throughout the ages, it is human nature to react to occupation, which often serves as a potent incubator of hate and extremism."

Most of the international community views Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank as illegal, however the country continues to build new settlements.

France's ambassador to Israel, Patrick Maisonnave, met Israeli officials this week to outline the initiative, which proposes setting up a support group of the permanent Security Council members, some Arab and European states and international organisations.

It would work in two stages, meeting first without the conflicting parties and then bringing them into the conference.

Netanyahu called it "mystifying" and counterproductive, arguing that the proposal gives Palestinians no incentive to compromise.

"It says, 'We shall hold an international conference but, if it doesn't succeed, we are deciding in advance what the consequence will be - we shall recognise a Palestinian state,'" he told reporters during a visit to Berlin.

"This of course ensures in advance that a conference will fail, because if the Palestinians know that their demands will be accepted... they don't need to do anything," he said.

Palestinian officials have long argued for an international process to end Israel's occupation and bring about a two-state solution.