Israel’s leader faces renewed pressure from Europe on yesterday to reboot the Middle East’s moribund peace process following widespread criticism of the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as the Jewish state’s capital, reports AFP from Brussels. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be in Brussels for an informal breakfast with EU foreign ministers who will urge him to “resume meaningful negotiations”, according to the bloc’s diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini.

The talks come after French President Emmanuel Macron met Netanyahu in Paris on Sunday and called on him to freeze settlement building and to re-engage with Palestinians following widespread protests over the US move. Last week’s decision by the administration of US President Donald Trump upended decades of US

diplomacy and broke with international consensus. Speaking alongside Netanyahu on Sunday, Macron again condemned the decision as “contrary to international law and dangerous for the peace process”. “I urged the prime minister to show courage in his dealings with the Palestinians to get us out of the current dead end,” Macron said after talks in Paris with the Israeli leader.

“Peace does not depend on the United States alone... it depends on the capacity of the two Israeli and Palestinian leaders to do so,” the French leader said. Netanyahu has praised Trump’s decision as “historic” and he explained Sunday that Jerusalem “has always been our capital and it has never been the capital of any other people”.