"The French government intends to advance a United Nations Security Council resolution on Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to senior officials in Jerusalem and Western diplomats.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius made a comment to that effect 10 days ago, at a meeting in New York of the foreign ministers of the Middle East Quartet...
According to Western diplomats present and the meeting as well as senior Israel officials briefed on the details, Fabius said he was interested in convening a follow-up conference in Paris to which countries interested in advancing a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be invited, but not the two sides themselves.
Immediately afterwards, he uttered a sentence which has caused a lot of nervousness in Jerusalem over the past ten days. According to the diplomats, Fabius said there were many parties pressing for a vote on a Security Council resolution on the settlements and the subject was being explored. Reports of Fabius' statement reached Israeli diplomats and Netanyahu, who was in New York at the time, within a few hours.
Like most of the participants at the Quartet meeting, Netanyahu and his advisers were surprised by the process Fabius proposed in his remarks...
Fabius' short, vague sentence regarding a Security Council resolution on Jewish settlements became a central element of a meeting of the Israeli inner cabinet last Monday, a day after Netanyahu's return from New York. In the face of pressure that was applied by Education Minister Naftali Bennett, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and Immigrant Absorption Minister Ze'ev Elkin to announce construction in settlements in response to the wave of terrorist attacks, Netanyahu and his adviser Isaac Molho presented information about the French plans.
Despite the fact that there is no draft or proposed text of a French resolution, Netanyahu, Molho and other participants at the meeting contended that it would state that the settlements are not legal. They presented Fabius' initial idea as a highly dangerous process that could bring about a wave of boycotts and withdrawal of investment from any Israeli entity operating directly or indirectly in the settlements; serious international isolation; and a risk of a trial at the International Court in The Hague against any entity connected to the settlements..."