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Spain, Ireland and Norway recognize the Palestinian state

2024-05-28 09:03:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Spain, Ireland and Norway will officially recognize the Palestinian state on Tuesday.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Tuesday morning that his country would recognize Palestinian statehood, including the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

However, he has said that Spain will not make any changes to the borders established in 1967, unless the parties agree.

"Recognition of the state of Palestine is an imperative if we all want to achieve peace," he said.

This decision has been strongly condemned by Israel and seen as a "reward" to Hamas - the Palestinian group declared a terrorist by the United States and the European Union - which leads Gaza.

These three European countries believe that their initiative has a great impact and will encourage other countries to do the same.

They also mention the historical role of Norway and Spain in advancing peace efforts between Israelis and Palestinians.

In 1991, the two sides sat together, for the first time ever, at the peace conference in Madrid, which then paved the way for the so-called Oslo Accords, signed in 1993.

"The recognition of the Palestinian state is about justice for the Palestinian people", said the Spanish Foreign Minister, Jose Manuel Albares, on Monday in Brussels.

According to him, this decision constitutes "the best security guarantee for Israel and it is absolutely essential to achieve peace in the region".

The plans for Palestinian state recognition were presented last week through a coordinated announcement between the three prime ministers.

Differences within the EU

Norway informed Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa at the weekend that the decision to recognize citizenship will take effect on Tuesday.

Although Slovenia has also started the process of recognizing the Palestinian state, this case has provoked deep disagreements within the European Union with 27 member states.

Spain and Ireland are part of the European bloc.

For decades, formal recognition of Palestinian statehood has been a sticking point in peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

Washington and many European states have said they are willing to one day recognize Palestinian statehood, but not before an agreement is reached on sensitive issues such as the status of Jerusalem and demarcation of borders.

However, the worsening situation in Gaza has increased calls for the Palestinians to have their own state.

Within the EU, countries such as France believe that the time has not yet come to act like that, while Germany believes that recognition should happen after the negotiations that the two sides are developing.

Tuesday's decision by Spain, Ireland and Norway will mean that 145 of the 193 member states of the United Nations now recognize the Palestinian state.

That includes many countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, but not the United States, Canada, most European countries, Australia, Japan, or even South Korea.

In 2014, Sweden became the first EU country to recognize Palestinian citizenship, joining six European countries that did so before joining the European bloc: Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic , Hungary, Poland and Romania.

However, the Czech Republic has recently said that the former Czechoslovakia's recognition of Palestinian statehood in 1988 is no longer valid.

'Reward for Hamas'

Last week's decision by Madrid, Dublin and Oslo has provoked a strong response from Israel.

On Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said he had notified the Spanish consulate in Jerusalem to stop providing consular services to Palestinians in the West Bank from June 1 as a "preliminary punitive measure".

"We will not allow damage to Israel's sovereignty and security," he said, describing the recognition of Palestinian statehood as "reward to Hamas," whose attacks, carried out on October 7 of last year, have prompted the war in Gaza.

The group's militants entered southern Israel that day and carried out an attack that resulted in more than 1,200 people being killed, mostly civilians, and about 250 others being taken hostage.

Israel then launched a military campaign in Gaza with the aim of destroying Hamas.

The retaliatory attacks have killed more than 36,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to Palestinian health authorities.

On Saturday, Spain's Defense Minister Margarita Robles accused Israel of committing "genuine genocide" in Gaza.

So far, such language has only been heard from far-left ministers in the governing coalition in Spain, but not from the Socialist Party.

"Some have seen our decision to recognize the state of Palestine as a reward for terror. Nothing could be further from the truth than this," Irish Foreign Minister Michael Martin said on Monday.

With this decision, Dublin, Madrid and Oslo wish "to see normalized relations in the future between the two peoples" and to implement the two-state solution, he said./ DW