Israel foreign ministry says French Mideast drive ‘will fail’

Jerusalem (AFP) – The head of Israel’s foreign ministry said Thursday that France’s bid to revive Israel-Palestinian peace talks was doomed to failure, like a 1916 colonial effort to carve up the Middle East.

“This effort utterly failed then and will completely fail today,” Dore Gold told journalists on the eve of an international meeting in Paris, referring to the Sykes-Picot agreement to draw up the region’s borders.