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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday slammed a France-backed initiative to settle Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The initiative intends to help restore long-stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, and establish a Palestinian state within 18-months' time.
Netanyahu, who made the statements on Sunday at the weekly cabinet meeting, will meet later in the day with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who is in the region for a two-day visit to promote the Paris-sponsored initiative.
He described the French proposal as a "dictate," which doesn't take into consideration Israel's "security needs," according to a statement from the prime minister's office, adding that Israel "strongly" rejects such an international dictate.
The statement also said that peace can only be the result of negotiations rather than unilateral moves.
Fabius arrived in Jordan on Sunday morning. He will meet separately with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, as well as Benjamin Netanyahu.
The French initiative urges both parties to restart peace talks, and suggests that after 18 months of negotiations, the United Nations shall pronounce Palestine as an independent state despite whether the talks produce an agreement or not.
On Saturday, Fabius told reporters in Cairo after meeting with President Abdel Fattah al Sisi, that if the peace talks will not resume, the region might be "set ablaze" and called upon the international community to press both sides to take that first step.
France has been trying to sell its plan for the past few months, seeking to garner support from Arab states as well as the United States, before bringing it to a meeting of the United Nations Security Council in September.
According to the plan, a Palestinian state should be established along the 1967 borders with land swaps, and Jerusalem is named as the capital of both Israel and Palestine.
However, Washington told France to stall the discussion of the initiative until the P5+1 countries (United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China) finish their negotiations with Iran over the latter's nuclear plan, which is set to occur by June 30.
The last round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinia National Authority (PNA) took place between July 2013 and April 2014, sponsored by the United States. The talks collapsed in part because the Palestinians announced the establishment of a unity government with Hamas, one of Israel's sworn-enemies.
Yet the PNA also charged Israel for the stagnated peace process, and criticized Israel's continued Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, the lands slated to be part of a future Palestinian state.
Trying to walk back his vows that no Palestinian state would be formed on his watch during the election campaigns this March, Netanyahu said recently he still supports the two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but did not specify any means to achieve the goal, while blamed the Palestinians for the deadlock.
In face, apart from the initiative, Israel and France have seen growing diplomatic tensions in recent months over the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Earlier this month, French CEO of the Orange Telecommunications company (which France owns a part of), Stephan Richard, said in Egypt he would end his company's contacts with the Israeli distributor "today" if it weren't for the heavy fines.
Richard apologized for the statement, according to several French reports due to pressure from French officials, and flew in to meet Netanyahu last week in order to "clear the air."
Another friction was noted in January, when, France voted in favor of a Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations. Although the bid failed, Israeli officials immediately summoned the French Ambassador to Israel, Patrick Masionnave, for clarifications. Enditem
