About 85 countries are coming together to discuss the two-state solution in Oslo’s City Hall, Stefanie Dekker of Al Jazeera reports from Oslo, Norway.
“This is where in 1994, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to [Israel’s] Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat for their efforts in trying to achieve peace in the Middle East,” the reporter said.
“Just before the opening statements, I asked the Norwegian foreign minister [Espen Barth Eide] and Palestinian prime minister [Mohammad Mustafa], how you can turn a very important dialogue into a change on the ground,” Dekker added.
“They both said it had to do with the pressure of the international community, that the cycle of violence will continue if the underlying issues are not addressed — the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and the Palestinian people.
“The symbolism here is that the dialogue continues, that you have countries from across continents coming together to discuss and to say that this is important — a solution needs to be made to the conflict and that is for Israel and Palestinians to live peacefully side by side,” they said.
“Of course, this symbolism is difficult to translate to reality on the ground,” the reporter concluded.
