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About twenty people, with Spanish and Palestinian flags, cheered Pedro Sánchez on Friday upon his arrival at the Government headquarters in Oslo. It was an anecdotal event, but unusual on Spanish soil, where the president does not usually encounter demonstrations of support but rather the opposite. The Norwegian Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, thanked him for having made a clear commitment to the recognition of the Palestinian State and for dedicating himself to traveling around Europe looking for accessions. Last November, the Norwegian Parliament urged Støre to recognize Palestine as a state and on Friday he declared himself “ready” to do so. He did not commit to taking that step at the same time as Spain, but he did not rule it out either.
“When all this is behind us, history will severely judge those who did not do what was in their power to prevent it,” reflects a senior official from La Moncloa. “The tragedy unfolding before our eyes in Gaza is generating deep unrest in European societies and a feeling of helplessness,” agrees one expert. The recognition of the Palestinian State, beyond its practical effectiveness, is the valve that many governments, especially medium and small countries, have found to satisfy their public opinions. “Many want to do something, but they don't want to do it alone so as not to make themselves known,” they add in La Moncloa. Sánchez has seen the opportunity and has decided to take the lead. For now, he has become coordinator of the countries willing to recognize Palestine as a State that are evaluating when and how to take that step.
After his stopover in Oslo, the Spanish president landed in Dublin (Ireland), where the new
taoiseach
(prime minister), Simon Harris, confirmed that he assumes the commitment of his predecessor, who signed a joint declaration with Spain on March 22, Slovenia and Malta in which he was willing to recognize the Palestinian State at the appropriate time. “It seems that we are getting closer [to that moment] and we want to move forward hand in hand with Spain, with the more allies the better,” he added.
In the midst of the campaign for the Basque regional elections and with less than a month left for the Catalan elections and two for the European elections, Sánchez dedicates a good part of his efforts to bringing together a critical mass of countries so that the recognition of Palestine is a relevant fact and not a isolated gesture, as happened to Sweden in 2014. On Monday he will receive in La Moncloa the new Portuguese prime minister, Luis Montenegro, who has already announced that he “welcomes” Palestine's entry into the UN; On Tuesday he will travel to Slovenia, to fulfill his commitment on March 22; and on Wednesday, on the outskirts of the European Council, he will meet with his counterparts from Luxembourg and Belgium, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU. He has “full harmony” with the Belgian Prime Minister, Alexander de Croo, with whom he traveled to the Middle East in November, according to La Moncloa, but he has not yet joined the initiative due to the heterogeneity of his Government and because he has general elections. in June.
After calling its ambassador in Madrid for consultations last November, Israel is now silent in the face of Sánchez's activism. In the United States, the State Department has stressed that recognition of the Palestinian state must be the result of an agreement with Israel, but also recognizes that it is the sovereign responsibility of states to decide when and how they recognize another. Diplomatic sources assure that Washington has told Madrid that it will not boycott her initiative; That is, it will not pressure the countries that join it not to do so.
The fact that Sánchez dedicates himself to international politics in the middle of the electoral cycle does not mean that he is not attentive to the polls. On the contrary. In La Moncloa they highlight that, although the Spanish president presides over the Socialist International, the governments that support the recognition of the Palestinian State belong to different political families: Christian Democrats (Ireland), Social Democrats (Norway) or Liberals (Slovenia). “It is a transversal issue, which in Spain has the majority support of the electorate, including that of the PP,” he emphasizes. This is, according to Government sources, what has upset the PP: that Sánchez leads an initiative that European conservatives and his own voters support. Alberto Núñez Feijóo has criticized it with a small mouth, demanding that Spain wait for “weighty” countries to support it; while former president José María Aznar has described it as “absurd” to recognize a Palestinian State “that does not exist” and Díaz Ayuso has accused the president of “rewarding” Hamas. “Let them clarify themselves,” Sánchez concluded.
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The diplomatic struggle is being fought in several scenarios. On the 18th, the Security Council will debate Palestine's entry as a full member of the UN and, although the request is still pending before the admission committee, Algeria has already announced that it will put its own proposal to a vote. If the United States, as expected, vetoes it, the Arab countries will take the matter to the General Assembly, the experts warn, and in that forum all the European countries, those that have joined Spain and those that have not, will have to portray themselves. publicly. Unless a retaliatory attack by Iran against Israel blows everything up and the war enters a new phase.
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