Spain, Norway and Ireland will recognize the Palestinian State on May 28. The three countries have agreed to do it on the same day and announce it, simultaneously, last Wednesday. They have been accused of being a “symbolic gesture” and it is: Madrid hosted the 1991 Middle East Conference and Oslo hosted the 1993 peace agreements. “The recognition of the Palestinian State is not going to put an end to the Gaza massacre, but if [Benjamín] Netanyahu has disliked him and [Mahmud] Abbas has applauded it, it will have some value,” Spanish diplomatic sources allege.
The Israeli Government reacted on Wednesday by calling its ambassadors in Spain, Norway and Ireland for consultations and summoning the diplomatic representatives of the three countries in Tel Aviv to give them a “severe reprimand” and show them a recording of the kidnapping of five young military women. by Hamas last October 7. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the recognition of Palestine is “a reward for terrorism” and that “evil cannot be given a State”; Meanwhile, the Palestinian president, Mahmud Abbas, called Pedro Sánchez to thank him for the decision.
What worries Netanyahu is that the example sets. “Israel doesn’t care whether Spain recognizes Palestine or not, but if other countries join this initiative, a crack could open in the shield of impunity that that country enjoys in Europe,” analyzes Isaías Barreñada, professor of International Relations of the Complutense University. For this reason, on Friday, the Israeli Government took a new retaliation: preventing the Spanish Consulate in Jerusalem (embassy de facto before the new State) that provides services to the Palestinians. The day before he had threatened to build a settlement for each country that takes that step. If in 2014, when Sweden recognized the Palestinian State, no one followed, now it may be very different. There are already 143 countries that have done so and on Tuesday they will reach 146, 75% of the members of the United Nations. And there will be more.
“Spain will be accompanied. We hope not to be the last, that our recognition contributes to other Western countries following this path,” said President Sánchez last Wednesday in Congress.
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Slovenia will be added to the three recognitions on May 28 on June 13, once it has completed its internal procedure. Sources familiar with the conversations that Sánchez has had in recent months hope that Malta will follow, which on March 22, on the margins of the European Council, signed a declaration in which it was willing to take that step, together with Spain, Slovenia and Ireland.
The next on the list, according to the same sources, could be Luxembourg and Belgium, whose prime minister, Alexander de Croo, accompanied the Spanish president on his visit to Israel and Palestine last November, but then withdrew from the initiative due to the imminence of the general elections in his country, which coincide with the European ones.
Portugal also dropped out, after the socialist Prime Minister António Costa was replaced by the conservative Luís Montenegro, but its Foreign Minister, Paulo Rangel, assured on May 14 in Madrid that his country supports recognition, although it prefers to wait until the moment. opportune, to join other European countries that are still reluctant. Greece and France could complete a list that would exceed half of the Twenty-seven members of the Union, counting the six that recognized Palestine when they were part of the Warsaw Pact and the two that did so after joining the community club, Cyprus and Sweden.
The expectation of this recognition with a domino effect is precisely what “fuels the hope” of the Palestinians, analyst Nour Odeh, former spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority, emphasizes by telephone from Ramallah. The step taken by Spain, Norway and Ireland “breaks a taboo in Europe and tells the European Union that its policies on Palestine have been wrong; than what has been done in the last 30 years [desde los acuerdos de paz de Oslo] “It is equivalent to guaranteeing that whatever Israel did, there would be no consequences.”
Conditions and requirements
Diplomatic sources point out that the best thermometer to measure the position of each country is the vote on the resolution approved on the 10th by the UN General Assembly which, in addition to expanding the prerogatives and rights of Palestinian representation, assured, in its first point, that “the State of Palestine meets the conditions and requirements to be a member of the United Nations”, which is why he asked the Security Council to reconsider its refusal to admit it.
The resolution was approved with 142 votes in favor, nine against and 25 abstentions. Significantly, the two EU members that voted against (the Czech Republic and Hungary) already recognized the Palestinian state when they were in the Soviet orbit. Among those who abstained are those most reluctant to take this step, such as Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Italy. On the contrary, among the 14 EU partners that voted in favor there were 11 that have not yet recognized Palestine. In addition to the two that will do so on Tuesday – Norway is not part of the Union – Portugal, France, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Luxembourg, Greece, Malta and Slovenia. Diplomatic sources allege that, for consistency with what they have voted for, they should recognize the Palestinian State “sooner rather than later.” The United Nations has recognized the legitimacy of a possible Palestinian State in successive resolutions, especially General Assembly 3236 of 1974, which defined the “self-determination” of that people as an “inalienable right.” Recognitions like that of Spain “are not a gift, but the consecration of a right,” points out analyst Nour Odeh.
France is a special case, as it also voted in the Security Council, which is the decision-making body of the United Nations, in favor of membership, although the United States imposed its veto. Following the announcement that the three European countries made on Wednesday, the French Foreign Minister, Stéphane Séjourné, declared that the recognition of the Palestinian State “is not taboo” for his country, although he does not consider the time to do so has arrived. With the largest Jewish community in Europe and almost seven million Muslims, the Arab-Palestinian conflict polarizes French society, where anti-Semitic incidents have multiplied.
Outside the EU, three countries traditionally aligned with the United States – the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia – have opened the door in recent weeks so that the recognition of Palestine does not have to wait for the end of the peace process, but can be anticipated. Although they are still far from taking that step, diplomatic sources emphasize that something is beginning to move even within the core of Israel’s unconditional allies. The dimension that the Gaza tragedy has reached and the criticism from the countries of the so-called Global South, which accuse Westerners of applying double standards in the Middle East and Ukraine, are beginning to have an impact on the foreign ministries, according to Spanish diplomatic sources.
In contrast to those who see a reek of electoralism in the Spanish decision, government sources allege that the scheduled date of recognition was last the 21st, so that it would not coincide with the electoral campaign, and was postponed to coordinate with other countries, such as Norway, where There are European elections. The Government also maintains that the measure is not against Israel and assures that, in his international campaign for this initiative, Sánchez has also defended the recognition of the State of Israel by the more than 25 countries that have not yet done so. made.
“Necessary but insufficient”
The Palestinians have welcomed Spain’s announcement between the “hope” described by the former spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority, skepticism or even the fear that this step will serve as a pretext for not opposing with concrete measures “the genocide in Gaza and the apartheid to which Israel subjects the Palestinian population,” says Taher Ali. This Palestinian, an activist from the Solidarity Network against the Occupation of Palestine (Rescop), considers that the “colonial and expansionist nature of Israel” is incompatible with a new State that would not even have “territorial continuity” due to Israeli settlements and the annexation of lands in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. This decision, he adds, “obviously shows that Israel is a State that does not even set borders.”
In his speech in Congress, Sánchez did not specify what the assumption of the statehood of Palestine will entail, when it is precisely in those details where the difference lies between “a mere symbolic act and another that contributes to breaking down the reality imposed by Israel on the ground.” ”, points out Professor Barreñada. A Palestinian State requires “minimum conditions” that Spain should press for and that should accompany that recognition that he describes as “necessary but insufficient.” Among them, the “end of the occupation and the apartheid of the Palestinians in Israel”, as well as “a just solution for the [casi seis] millions of Palestinian refugees who have the right of return [al actual Israel]”.
Adding to the uncertainty about the specific details of the recognition is another reason for concern, adds Itxaso Domínguez de Olazábal, professor of Middle East Geopolitics at the Carlos III University of Madrid. This is the “legitimization,” during Sánchez’s parliamentary announcement, “of a corrupt Palestinian Authority, which represses its own people and collaborates with Israel.”
This expert believes that the Spanish decision leaves too many questions in the air: “What real possibilities are there of creating a State? What real sovereignty does the Palestinian Authority have? and, above all, what is going to happen with Gaza, how does that enter into the equation of this new State?
These and other questions, such as the one related to the right of return of the almost six million Palestinian refugees, take this professor back to the failed Oslo agreements, more than 30 years ago, which were supposed to culminate in a Palestinian State. Then, the negotiation of all the issues “central to the Palestinian cause was postponed until later” without ever becoming a reality. For this and other reasons, Domínguez de Olazábal believes that this Palestinian State, under current conditions and “in the context of a genocide in Gaza” is “utopian.” Furthermore, the Palestinians’ right to self-determination “may culminate in a state or not. Or in a binational state.”
There are “alternatives,” says this specialist. Faced with a “useless” recognition and what it defines as a “dead solution” of the two States, “it is necessary to break relations with Israel, especially the purchase and sale of weapons, join the demand for genocide from South Africa and continue putting pressure on the EU to suspend the association agreement with Israel.” In her opinion, only in this way will “the impunity that that country has enjoyed for decades” be combated.
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