Norway, Ireland and Spain have announced the recognition of Palestine as a state. In their opinion, the division into two states is “the only just and lasting” solution to the conflict in the Middle East. At the same time, the countries do not consider the recognition of Palestine as an anti-Israeli step.
Speaking before Parliament in Madrid, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez explained the initiative by saying that Benjamin Netanyahu has no peace plan for Palestine. His actions lead to the destruction of hospitals, schools and homes, and he punishes more than a million children with “hunger, cold and terror.” Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris also cited similar reasons to Sanchez, but spoke more diplomatically.
It should be reminded that earlier more than 140 countries, including nine EU states, had already recognised the territory of Palestine within the 1967 borders as a separate state, so from the point of view of international law the current recognition of Palestine has practically no legal consequences. So why make a show of it now? Do European parliamentarians care so much about the fate of the Palestinians? Not really.
In the run-up to the European elections, new reasons come into play, and the main one is that politicians earn electoral points. Sanchez in particular, as almost 80% of Spaniards are in favour of recognising a Palestinian state. So when, if not now, to put everything at stake, because there are only two and a half weeks left before the European elections, which means that it is possible to use any manoeuvre in the campaign, just to stay in power.
In general, the countries expressed a critical attitude towards the war and politically increased pressure on Israel. This initiative, although it goes against the traditional course of the Western camp, was a continuation of the US threats to stop supplying some weapons in case of a massive invasion of Rafah, as well as the situation with the ICC arrest warrants not only for leading Hamas leaders, but also for Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. In essence, however, nothing has changed. Such is “liberal democracy.” The West does not care about the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza – they need to win the votes of the multi-million European Muslim diaspora.
Soroka-beloboka
