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Spain, Ireland and Norway decided on Wednesday May 22 to officially recognize the State of Palestine.
This is an unprecedented victory for the Palestinian people who have suffered, since October 7, 2023, an unprecedented racist purge carried out by the Israeli occupation army in Gaza. Slovenia has also started the procedure for recognizing the Palestinian state, which could be effective at the end of the month.
This announcement is a new setback for the Zionist state as the international criminal court prepares to issue an international arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the chief of staff for genocide while the General Assembly of the United Nations passed a resolution calling for Palestine to be made a full member state of the UN.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez published a joint statement in March with the heads of government of Ireland, Slovenia and Malta in which these countries expressed their desire to recognize such a state.
Spain and Ireland have been at the forefront of this initiative since last January, under popular pressure increasingly hostile to the Zionist state. The two countries had initially considered recognizing Palestine as an independent state by next July.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who appears to be a staunch defender of Palestinian rights, sees this proclamation of the State of Palestine as a way to achieve a solution ending the 76-year-old conflict and the Israeli aggression, the deadliest in progress in Gaza.
For its part, the European Union has initiated the final turn of contacts with European leaders with whom Sánchez has formed a front serving to endorse the recognition of the Palestinian state in the coming weeks.
“The time has come for the international community to recognize once and for all the State of Palestine,” Sanchez said last November.
“This is something that many EU countries believe we need to do together, but if this is not the case, Spain will make its own decision. “, warned the leader of the Spanish Socialist Party.
“Each of us will now take the necessary steps to give effect to this decision,” said Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris, hailing a “historic and important day for Ireland and for Palestine”.
The recognition of the State of Palestine by three countries constitutes a “historic” moment, affirmed the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), seeing in it “the path to stability, security and peace in the region”. These are “historical moments in which the free world triumphs (…) after long decades of Palestinian national struggle, suffering, pain, racism, murder, oppression, abuse and destruction to which the people of Palestine have been subjugated,” Hussein al-Sheikh, secretary general of the PLO executive committee, said on the X social network.
In Brussels, the front made up of Spain, Ireland, Poland and Slovenia benefited from the support of Malta and Luxembourg. The objective was to form a “critical mass” capable of encouraging other countries to take the plunge.
In total, 139 of the 193 member states of the United Nations consider Palestine a state. These include European nations such as Iceland, Poland and Romania, as well as countries such as Algeria, Russia, China and Nigeria.
Members of the bloc have for months adopted divergent positions on Israel’s conduct in the besieged enclave. But it is not surprising to see Ireland, Malta, Slovenia and Spain taking the lead among EU members on this front, given their long-standing positions in favor of Palestinian self-determination.
The four governments would have preferred to act within the EU framework, which would have given them much more leverage, but the pro-Israeli positions of Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and others are pushing back the idea of consensus.
With this in mind, decision-makers in Dublin, Ljubljana, Madrid and Valletta have demonstrated that the best possible path forward is to move forward in this relatively small group of like-minded EU members. It is possible that other European countries will soon join this group and agree to recognize the State of Palestine, experts say.
“This decision could trigger a few more recognitions, but I don’t expect an avalanche,” said Marco Carnelos, former Italian ambassador to Iraq. “Other EU member states will be watching what larger members like Germany, France and Italy do. »
According to Carnelos, there is “no chance” that Germany or Italy under the leadership of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni would accept such a move,” he said.
Belgium, whose officials have been more critical of Israeli aggression and have called for economic sanctions against Israel, said it would consider recognizing Palestine.
Belgium holds the rotating presidency of the EU this semester and this is most likely the reason why the Belgian government has not joined Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and Malta in their initiative to recognize Palestine, according to analysts. Given the Belgian government’s critical stance towards Zionist aggression in Gaza, it is likely that Belgium will join the front when it cedes the rotating presidency.
The UN special rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, estimated that the bloc (EU) “must end commercial relations” with the Zionist entity in order to “prevent war crimes amounting to genocide in the Strip of Gaza under siege.
Israel has been bombing Gaza for nearly 260 days with the declared aim of neutralizing the resistance, but it has emerged that the Jewish state is deliberately targeting women and children to decimate the Palestinian population, according to numerous organizations including those of the UN.