European Union Foreign Ministers on Monday welcomed ideas presented by French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault to convene an international conference later this year in Paris in order to revive deadlocked Israeli-Palestinian talks.

Ayrault presented his initative during a meeting of the 28 ministers in Brussels.

‘’All members states welcomed the approach of creating synergies and working together in support of the consolidated EU position, in coordination with the Quartet and the Arab interlocutors,’’ said EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini at a press conference after the meeting.

‘’Our special envoys are in contact with the parties,’’ she said.

‘’I updated the ministers on the work of the Mideast Quartet (the EU, the UN, Russi and the US) and the report we agreed in Munich with the Quartet Principals as well as the synergies and coordination we are estbalishing with the French initiative that is is taking shape these days,‘’ Mogherini added.

Erlier, Ayrault told reporters that he will “explain” to his EU counterparts “the method that we propose - to create a political consensus for two states, Palestine and Israel.”

Amid the wave of daily Palestinian knife and car-ramming attacks on Israelis, he said there was a “risk of escalation.”

During a press conference in Paris over the weekend along with US Secretary of State John Kerry and Mogherini, Ayraukl said “We all believe that we have to get out of this quagmire and try and set the necessary conditions for resuming the peace talks.”

The French idea is to start with an international conference in Paris in the summer involving Arab states and UN Security Council members.

A top French diplomat, Pierre Vimont, who is a former French ambassador to the US and a former EU foreign service secretary general, was tasked to contacty the parties in order to prepare the gathering.

Israel belives that the best path forward is direct talks between the two parties. The Palestinians, however, have so far rejected all proposls to engage in such talks.

In an opinion article published in French daily Le Monde, Dore Gold, the Israeli foreign ministry’s director-general, stressed that historically direct talks had been the most fruitful way for Israel to achieve peace with its neighbors.

“While it is tempting for some in the West to envision convening a large international conference to somehow advance that goal, what is far more likely in that scenario is that the parties would negotiate with the other states and not with each other,” he wrote.

Such a multilateral process takes away any incentive the Palestinians might have to hold direct talks with Israel, he said.

“The cardinal question the international community must ask is whether they are incentivizing Abbas to come back to the negotiating table or disincentivizing him. If he reads that Israel is about to face new European pressures, he will believe that he can obtain his goals without reaching a peace agreement with Israel.

“This tactic is the quickest way for outside powers to destroy the peace process, not advance it,” Gold wrote.

by Yossi Lempkowicz