“Before the end of this year, we will hold the first bilateral summit between Spain and Palestine,” he announced. Pedro Sanchez This Wednesday, in his inaugural conference of the political course. The Spanish president intends to continue leading Western democracies with his conviction of knowing how to get out of the “eternal” Arab-Israeli conflict.
Sánchez will continue to be “audacious” and to get ahead of the rest of his partners. Because beyond the fact that the Palestinian State was proclaimed on November 15, 1988 in Algiers, the truth is that It has no institutions, no territory, no sovereignty.However, Spain has already acknowledged this, last May, when it reached, after several unsuccessful tours, three other countries (Slovenia and Ireland, members of the EU, in addition to Norway).
In this way, the announced summit will not only be the first meeting of the heads of government of both parties in which the representative of the Kingdom of Spain recognizes the representative of the Palestinian National Authority as his equal. But it will be the first from a Member State of the European Union since October 7. And that is not nothing, but an explicit gesture from Sanchez.
It must be clarified that, for the Spanish position, it would be unfair to approach the diplomatic stage of a bilateral summit with Palestine in this way. Because for Sánchez, The ANP has nothing to do with Hamas terroristsas he has tried to clarify on other occasions.
But it is true that in fact, the intensification of political relations with the Palestinian side has arisen, since last year, precisely from the situation created by the jihadist attack of 7-O. As a risky political gamble that provoked a succession of diplomatic crises and cross-declarations with Israel, incapable of accepting this “gift to the terrorists of a friendly country”, after the worst massacre of Jews since the Shoah.
Nothing for Israel
That morning last fall, more than 1,400 people were tortured and massacred in southern Israel. Hundreds of Hamas terrorists crossed the border through tunnels and tore down border fences, raped and murdered, burned babies and They kidnapped 243 people.
Although the “wound” of the diplomatic relationship Spain’s relationship with Israel is clearly being expanded with this announcement and with other words of the president in his speech, according to well-informed sources.
The last priority point among the six into which he divided the conference was that of peace. And he devoted much more time to Spain’s southern and Mediterranean neighborhood than to other scenarios, until now priorities, such as Ukraine or even Venezuela.
After two months of some relaxation in the confrontation that Sánchez opened last November with the government of Benjamin NetanyahuThe President chose the beginning of the course to once again bring the Palestinian question to the forefront. And to redouble his belligerence towards the Israeli executive.
In the same passage, he brings together three ideas: “We will continue to support the people of Gaza by supporting UNRWA, and pressuring Netanyahu at the International Criminal Court. “We will strengthen our ties with the Palestinian state that we recently recognized.”
There are three points that Israel KatzNetanyahu’s government foreign minister made it clear that it was they who had caused the withdrawal of his country’s ambassador to Madrid.
Furthermore, the reference to the Israeli Prime Minister implies An escalation in Moncloa’s belligerence with Israel. Firstly, because of the personalisation of its counterpart; and secondly, because, until now, Spain claimed to limit itself to “supporting” the South African request in The Hague.
Israel has not yet responded to the president’s remarks, but it seems clear that Jerusalem will consider them a new hostile gesture. Especially because they were made by the head of government himself and because, even though he spoke of peace and human rights, Sánchez did not gift nothing for the Jewish state: it had not no mention of the kidnapped who are still in the hands of Hamas, after 11 months of captivity.
“Contradictions”
International relations are “a continuous debate of contradictions,” as a Foreign Affairs source explained after Sánchez’s speech. And for this reason, the government says it is trying promote the international political legitimacy of the ANPto force Israel to stop the war in Gaza, thus giving negotiations a chance.
“At this summit, we hope sign several collaboration agreements between the two states,” Sanchez said, stressing that Palestine is “a state already recognized by Spain.”
It has been 36 years since the Palestinian National Council began its efforts to become what the PNA is today.
Three years later, the Madrid Conference took place in October 1991, where for the first time Israel agreed to sit down to begin discussing “peace for the territories” at a table where there was Palestinian representation (yes, within the Jordanian delegation).
All this is thanks to the fact that the proclamation of the Palestinian state in 1988 was accompanied by the acceptance of the resolutions 242 and 338 of the UN Security Council, which meant recognizing Israel’s right to exist.
“Last year We have launched an ambitious foreign policy and consistent with the commitment to peace that the entire social majority of this country wants,” Sánchez concluded in his public speech on Wednesday, acknowledging that there was a turning point in 2023, which he now supports with another first step among its Western partners.
