Oren Dorell

USA TODAY

France on Friday threatened to recognize a Palestinian state if Israel and the Palestinians cannot settle their long-festering differences following a peace conference planned by summer.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said he will invite Israel, Palestinians, Arab nations and others to a peace conference to seek a two-state solution. “If this attempt to achieve a negotiated solution reaches a dead end, we will take responsibility and recognize the Palestinian state,” Fabius said, according to France 24.

Fabius said continued Israeli settlement construction on land that Palestinians want for a future state threatens a political agreement and requires a French response. “We must not let the two-state solution unravel. It is our responsibility as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council,” he said.

His announcement came three days after U.N. Secretary-general Ban Ki Moon called Israeli settlement construction on disputed land Palestinians want for their own state “provocative acts” that "raise fundamental questions about Israel's commitment to a two-state solution."

The United States also has condemned Israeli settlements in the West Bank, saying the division of land should be negotiated by the two parties.

Predictably, the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, welcomed the news, and Israel rejected it.

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A U.S. State Department official said she would not speculate on the proposed conference, and the U.S. position on the recognition of a Palestinian state has not changed. “We continue to believe that the preferred path to resolve this conflict is for the parties to reach an agreement on final status issues directly,” said Samantha Sutton, special assistant to the Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations.

If France recognizes a Palestinian state, it would be the third Western European country to do so, after Iceland and Sweden, and the first permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

The move would have no practical effect on Palestinian or Israeli lives, but it would have symbolic impact and increase diplomatic pressure on Israel, said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department peace negotiator who has advised several U.S. presidents on the Middle East.

“The French carry serious weight in the international community,” said Miller, who called the proposal “bone headed” on Twitter.

The problem with the French proposal, Miller said, is that it won’t work.

Rather than compel Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reconsider his policies, “this is only going to deepen Netanyahu’s sense of isolation, and strain relations with the French,” Miller said.