With the greatest solemnity, on the steps of La Moncloa, alone and without accepting questions, Pedro Sánchez confirmed this Tuesday the biggest leap in Spanish foreign policy since he came to power in 2018. After more than 70 years of conflict, Spain recognizes the Palestinian State simultaneously with Ireland and Norway, and will thus join the list of 140 countries around the world that already do so. The president has announced that Spain will not recognize, unless agreed between the parties, any other border other than that of 1967. In that year Israel began little by little to occupy increasingly larger areas of Palestine after the call War of the six days. Since then, Israel has been making holes in the Palestinian territory like a Gruyère cheese with areas controlled by settlers that are reducing the living space of the inhabitants of the occupied area.
Sánchez has been very clear in the formula that Spain proposes with his recognition: “A viable state with the West Bank and Gaza connected by a corridor and unified under the government of the Palestinian Authority.” One of the consequences of this Israeli occupation has been that the Palestinian territory has been divided in two without communication between the two areas, Gaza and the West Bank. And in the face of criticism from Israel and the opposition in Spain, who accuse him of siding with Hamas, the president has been emphatic: recognizing Palestine goes against Hamas, because this terrorist group is against the two-state solution. which is the commitment of Spain and the entire international community. “It is a decision that we do not make against anyone. Even less against Israel, a friendly people that we respect and with whom we want to have the best possible relationship. We want to show our categorical rejection of Hamas. Spain condemned the attack of October 7 from the first moment. “The Palestinian Authority is our partner for peace,” said Sánchez.
“This is a historic decision. We act in accordance with what is expected of a great country like Spain. It is not only a question of historical justice, it is the only way to move forward towards the solution of a Palestinian State that coexists with the State of Israel in security and peace,” the president insisted. After this statement, Sánchez chaired the Council of Ministers that made the decision. When the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, officially announced the recognition of Palestine as a subject of international law, there was a long applause from all the ministers, thus giving the dimension of the historic leap that they had just taken. Within the Council there was no debate, according to several of its members, although outside, in front of the media, Sumar did propose that it could go further.
The second vice president and leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, offered an interview on TVE shortly after Sánchez appeared, as a way of establishing his party’s position and remembering that this is a decision of the coalition government, although foreign policy is directed by the president, and also to show some differences. “It is a historic day, this is the path to peace. But with what we are seeing in Palestine, it is not enough,” Díaz explained. “We have to call the ambassador for consultations, we have to join South Africa and impose an arms embargo on Israel. This is genocide. We are facing an extreme right-wing government, that of [Benjamín] Netanyahu, who violates human rights, who challenges all institutions in the world, including the UN. We have to do something. We must act against Netanyahu,” she insisted.
Díaz’s intervention shows that Sumar wants to show his differences. Albares himself pointed out over the weekend, visibly upset, that foreign policy corresponds to him and the President of the Government, both from the socialist sector, and, therefore, not to Sumar. In the middle of the electoral period, and with the PSOE and Sumar competing for border electorates, the tension within the coalition is increasingly evident, with mutual reproaches and votes in the opposite direction in Congress, although some ministers consulted believe that after the elections The internal waters will calm down.
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The PP, which has made it clear that it supports the two-state solution, its traditional position, but does not believe that it is the right time yet to recognize Palestine, has shown a certain low profile in the reaction to this decision by Sánchez and his Government. In the midst of the European campaign, the Popular Party prefers to focus on national political issues, such as the amnesty law, which they believe wears down the Government much more than the international issues that are dominating the agenda in this first phase – Ukraine, Palestine. Alberto Núñez Feijóo took the day off and Dolors Montserrat, the PP candidate, said that the decision is only due to Sánchez’s “personal and political interest.”
Minutes after the appearance of the President of the Government, the Israeli Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, published a tweet in which he accused him of being “complicit in inciting the genocide of the Jewish people and war crimes”, for his announcement and for not stopping Yolanda Díaz, whose photo illustrates the tweet along with those of the leader of Hamas in Gaza and mastermind of October 7, Yahia Sinwar, and the Iranian supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. All three, he notes, “call for the demise of the State of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian Islamic terrorist state.”
His Spanish counterpart, José Manuel Albares, has described Katz’s interventions on social networks as “provocations and despicable hoaxes”, but has assured that both Spain, Ireland and Norway are talking to give a “firm and coordinated response” when they decide, not at the moment when Israel wants to, in the minister’s opinion, divert attention from what is important, which is the recognition of Palestine, and focus it on the diplomatic tension. Government sources indicate that neither the call for consultations nor the withdrawal of the ambassadors is on the table at the moment. That is what Israel is seeking with its provocations, but the Executive is thinking of other formulas, according to these sources, rather seeking to appeal to Israel’s compliance with international conventions so that, for example, it does not prevent the Spanish consulate in Jerusalem from serving to the Palestinians, as he is threatening. “My Israeli colleague wants that today instead of talking about what we have to talk about, the existence of a Palestinian State, we would be talking about tweets and provocations. We will respond when we decide and not when others decide,” Albares insisted, who said that the Argentine case – in which Spain definitively withdrew the ambassador after the attacks in Madrid by the president, Javier Milei, against the wife of Pedro Sánchez – It’s completely different.
Matter of time
The most important European countries are missing – France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom – to which Spain, Ireland and Norway have decided to go ahead, but others such as Slovenia have already announced that this week they are also going to take the step and the Government believes that it is a matter of time before others do the same because Israel’s indiscriminate bombings on Gaza, which have already caused more than 35,000 Palestinian deaths, half of them children, and which this Sunday left 45 civilian victims in a refugee camp in Rafah, are isolating Israel more and more, as proof that for the first time the EU foreign ministers have decided to summon their Israeli counterpart “to discuss the situation in Gaza.” This was a request from Spain and Ireland, which is now making its way. This is a path in which government sources have a lot of confidence, even more than in the diplomatic measures that can be taken individually against Israel.
The socialist sector of the Executive does not seem concerned either by Sumar’s questions, which they attribute to the electoral period, or by the rejection of this step by the PP and Vox. In La Moncloa they believe that Feijóo is making a mistake on this matter because the polls indicate that the majority of Spaniards, also those who vote for the PP, are in favor of the recognition of Palestine. The very harsh images that come from Rafah with the attack on defenseless refugees in tents, in which even Netanyahu assumes that “something went tragically wrong”, place the Government “on the right side of history”, a phrase that Sánchez uses frequently to defend the recognition of Palestine.
In the middle of the European campaign, in La Moncloa they believe that the PP does not have a clear discourse on foreign policy and that is why it tries to bring the debate to domestic politics, especially with the amnesty, but the reality, with the attack in Rafah , the recognition of Palestine and Zelensky’s visit to Madrid, is bringing to the fore precisely the point in which Sánchez feels stronger and believes Feijóo is much weaker: the agenda of major conflicts and major international decisions.
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