Under other circumstances, it would have been a day of celebration in the West Bank. But this Tuesday, after eight months of devastating war in a Gaza that is as emotionally close as it is physically inaccessible, there was nothing to indicate in Ramallah that Spain, Ireland and Norway had just become the first EU countries to recognize the Palestinian state in a decade. The same city that installed giant screens in 2012 so that a crowd could follow with euphoria the entry of Palestine into the UN as a non-member state has limited itself to placing the flags of the three countries on the façade of City Hall. They hang next to that of South Africa, the country that has taken Israel for the crime of genocide before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which ordered it last week to immediately stop the offensive in Rafah. That’s where the minds are, not in recognition.
On a bench in front of City Hall, Omar Sabah and Ghait Hanun search on Google which country corresponds to one of the flags (the Norwegian one) installed on the façade since the recognition was announced last week. They share age (30 years), profession (e-commerce) and bittersweet feelings (a mixture of gratitude and sadness) at the recognition. “I’m sad that it took more than 30,000 deaths and all the destruction of infrastructure for it to happen, to give us some hope,” says Hanun. “At the same time,” he continues, “on a spiritual level it makes us feel heard. Like there are countries that understand now, better than before, what we Palestinians have been going through.”
“It’s difficult,” Sabah says. “I open Instagram, I see what is happening in Gaza, like yesterday [por la matanza de este lunes en un campamento improvisado de desplazados] in Rafah and at the same time I know that here I continue with my life and that I am safe, that a missile is not going to fall on my head.” Sabah brings up a topic that is very present in conversations and social networks in the Arab world: “It is incredible that it is in Europe where they have done something, while the Arab countries have carried out the entire war quietly, without cutting off relations with Israel. Furthermore, I have heard that your president [del Gobierno, Pedro Sánchez] “He wants to convince other European countries to do the same.”
There is a celebration at City Hall, but it has nothing to do with recognition. Dozens of people come dressed up to celebrate the graduation of a high school. Just some balloons and bouquets of flowers to take photos for the border, instead of the usual party. It’s not just that there are few bodies, it’s that it would be frowned upon in a city that other Palestinians already see as a kind of lifers more concerned with going to the latest trendy restaurant than defending the Palestinian cause.
anecdotal acts
The acts for recognition have been anecdotal. In the morning, a few dozen people gathered in front of the Al Bire cultural center, next to Ramallah. It wasn’t even, in fact, a concentration expressly, but the one that they usually call in solidarity with the thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and that, on this occasion, added gratitude to Spain, Ireland and Norway among the reasons. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed in a statement the “brave and bold European political positions, especially those adopted by Spain, Ireland and Norway.”
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Abed, a gas station employee, sums up the general sentiment: “Celebrate? What are we going to celebrate while Gaza bleeds to death? Maybe later, when we have a real State. But not now”. It is a feeling similar to that of Mohamed: “How are we going to celebrate the recognition if today is my brother’s birthday and he is not going to organize anything? Nobody is celebrating anything here.”
They are the “two realities” that Lina alludes to in a cafeteria in the city. “You go to work, to the gym and every 20-30 minutes you open your phone and see tents burning [en alusión a la matanza del lunes, por un incendio que causó el lanzamiento de dos misiles] and a headless child.” The Palestinians of the West Bank, like her, see, on the one hand, “a direct genocide” and, on the other, a “great diplomatic achievement,” as defined by the recognition by the three countries. Although Palestinians aspire to make East Jerusalem the capital of their future state, Ramallah is home to the ministries of the Palestinian National Authority, which exercises limited self-government, especially in the cities. Ireland announced this Tuesday that it will have its Embassy there.
It is the same city as in recent months, with fewer people on the streets than usual and some businesses closed. Israel retains taxes that it is obliged, by the Oslo Accords, to transfer to the Palestinian National Authority and allow it to pay the salaries of civil servants. Since the Hamas attack on October 7, it has also frozen work permits for West Bankers in construction and agriculture in Israel and in the settlements, on which tens of thousands of homes depended.
It is one thing, however, that minds are in Gaza, especially in Rafah (where the Israeli army has just arrived in the center of the city), and another that the recognition has gone unnoticed. Everyone knows the news. Spain is, in general, a country appreciated by the Palestinians (and the Arab world in general), but facial expressions and words of gratitude have been frequent since Sánchez visited Israel in November and – when few Western leaders used that language – he told to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “the response to the attacks cannot involve the death of thousands of children.” This Tuesday, on the streets of Ramallah, the response to the introductory greeting “Hello, I am a Spanish journalist” used to be: “Thank you.”
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