Since mid-March, contacts between Spain and Ireland have intensified, with a view to joint recognition of Palestine as a state. The planned date of May 21 has just been postponed in order to allow other countries to join this recognition.
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Among the 193 members of the UN, 50 countries continue to refuse to recognize Palestine. Yet many support “the two-state solution” to end the conflict with Israel. In 1947, the UN partition plan for Palestine, then under British mandate, provided for a Jewish state (on 55% of the territory) and an Arab state (on 45%), at the end of the Second World War. This plan was rejected by the Arab side. The end of the British mandate in the territory, on May 14, 1948, marked the creation of the State of Israel, and the rest of the territory then allied itself with the surrounding Arab countries to wage a series of wars against these new borders.
Today, a large number of UN members recognize a Palestinian state, but this does not concern North America (United States, Canada), nor Western Europe, apart from Sweden and Iceland. However, the idea is gaining ground more and more in the West, with Ireland and Spain leading the way. The countries have come together on this subject and Simon Harris, the Irish Prime Minister, has met his Spanish counterpart, Pedro Sanchez, several times recently. The two governments even considered on Tuesday May 21 jointly recognizing Palestine. This date appears to have been pushed back, but only to allow other countries to join them in this process.
Ireland and its identification with a country dominated by its neighbor
Ireland has long been at the forefront of the fight for Palestinian rights. Since October 7, 2023, demonstrations in the country for a ceasefire have not weakened. Identification with the Palestinian cause has never been so strong and so Ireland seems, perhaps with Spain, a little apart in Europe. Leo Varadkar, the former Prime Minister, was the first in Europe to criticize the Israeli bombings, expressing concern as early as November “an action approaching revenge”.
In fact, the scars of British colonization are still painful in Ireland and this fuels a sense of a shared history with Palestine. The formal recognition of Palestine as a state is therefore, for many, an essential first step in achieving a two-state solution. Today, some even hope that Ireland could serve as a model for peace.
Ireland itself is divided into two, with the Republic of Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland. During the period known as “The Troubles”, more than 3,500 people lost their lives, as lawyer Gary Daly explains: “We’ve been through our own conflict, we’ve been through occupation. We’ve been through colonization, we know all that. The peace process in the North is imperfect, the Good Friday Agreement is imperfect, but it ended at war.” This Good Friday Agreement, signed in April 1998, put an end to 30 years of hostilities and bloody unrest.
Spain, long-standing ground of the peace process between Palestine and Israel
In Spain, the head of government, Pedro Sánchez, has also been defending the official recognition of the Palestinian state for months against all odds. The Palestinian cause is a long-standing subject in a country where, since the return of democracy in 1975, the various Spanish governments have maintained good relations with the Palestinian authorities. This is also where the Madrid Conference was held in October 1991 between the former Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, and the former President of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat.
Pedro Sánchez’s position is therefore part of this tradition, namely Spain’s commitment to a lasting solution for peace between Palestine and Israel, which involves the official recognition of the Palestinian state. Furthermore, this recognition is a historic commitment by Pedro Sánchez since 2015. It also appears in the coalition agreement, signed in 2023, between the Spanish socialists and the left-wing Sumar coalition.
Since the Israeli response to Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, the head of the Spanish government has also been one of the most critical voices in Europe on the fate reserved for Palestinian civilians: “It is a humanitarian catastrophe which hits us all, which cannot leave the international community, and even less Europe, indifferent. Is it not in the interest of Spain and Europe that we succeed to peace and peaceful coexistence and that we finally provide a solution to a crisis, like the one we are experiencing in Gaza, which has left more than 30,000 dead. Therefore, we are going to take this step, when the circumstances? will allow it.”
Spain’s recognition of the Palestinian state was imminent and was postponed, to coordinate with other countries and carry out joint recognition. Pedro Sánchez has led a series of contacts in Europe in recent months to promote a diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is expected to reveal the date of recognition of the Palestinian state by Spain on Wednesday morning, May 22, during his appearance before the Congress of Deputies.