A French diplomat said his country will move forward with its peace initiative by the end of this year despite Israel’s objection.

Pierre Vimont, who is France's special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and a former senior official of the EU's foreign affairs service, told a conference in Tel Aviv that the current status quo was distancing the two-state solution and necessitating an intervention: "We want to revive the two-state solution in this window of opportunity and return it to the international agenda."

The French initiative aims to host an international peace summit in order to "help advance the prospects for peace.”

Israel has thus far rejected the initiative and insists that the only way to achieve peace is through direct talks with the Palestinian Authority.

Vimont said that promoting the initiative is a test of wills to see if the Israelis and Palestinians truly want to reach a solution. "The French initiative is not an attempt to get involved in Israeli policy, but an attempt to harness the goodwill of the international community for the sake of a solution," he said.

At the same conference, Isaac Herzog, leader of the opposition, said that he preferred direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority supported by Arab countries. "The Arab Quartet—Egypt, Jordan, Saud Arabia and the UAE—has tried to lead such a process in recent months, and it was the basis of my talks with Netanyahu on unity," he said.