In a remarkable European step, Ireland, Spain, and Norway officially announced recognition of the State of Palestine, while other countries such as Slovenia and Malta expressed their intention to take a similar step, which was considered a gap in the European wall of resistance to Palestinian rights, even if at a minimum.
In light of the continued brutal Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, questions arise: Will this lead to an expansion of European recognitions? Where do global recognition steps lead? To what extent will this serve the struggle of the Palestinian people seeking to get rid of the occupation?
Contexts
Although the United States used its veto in the UN Security Council on April 18, 2024 to prevent the issuance of a resolution that opens the door to granting the State of Palestine full membership in the United Nations, the Assembly adopted on May 10 a resolution entitlement of Palestine to this membership in the United Nations, in which 143 countries voted in favor and abstained. 25 about voting.
The step to put the issue of statehood back on the table came after the Al-Aqsa Flood operation raised the profile of the issue that had almost dissolved in light of the path of normalization and security cooperation between the occupation and the Arab countries and with the continuation of settlement, the annexation of Palestinian lands, and the Judaization of Jerusalem.
It was also linked to the desire of the administration of US President Joe Biden to find a way out of the Israeli war on Gaza by proposing a draft political solution to the Palestinian issue based on Israeli recognition of the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state, but within the context of negotiations with the Palestinians, which means that the outcome of the negotiations will be determined by the stronger party and the owner The reality on the ground, which may empty the term state of its true meaning.
Biden also wanted to help the entity get out of its predicament in Gaza in a context that does not impose on it a specific form for the Palestinian entity that will arise, which may not differ much from the formula of the existing entity in the West Bank, in addition to taking advantage of this atmosphere to launch a state of Arab normalization as an achievement that it carries in the context of a campaign. The US presidential elections scheduled for next November.
It can be said that the approach that Biden worked on differed, at least formally, from the approach that his predecessor, Donald Trump, worked on within the “Deal of the Century” project and approved by Israel, as he calls for resolving the Palestinian issue through direct negotiations without setting the Palestinian state as his goal, and within the framework of comprehensive Arab normalization. Known as the Abraham Agreement, the Palestinian Authority rejected this project.
But now, in the context of the state of extremism sweeping Israel across all political spectrums, the occupation government has refused to respond to the demand of the American administration, even if this demand is formal and provides it with a state of integration in the region under American sponsorship, and even provides it with a way out of the current situation in Gaza, and guarantees employment. The (renewed) Palestinian Authority in the vacuum likely to emerge after the end of the war.
For its part, the Palestinian Authority tried to ride this wave by escalating the recognition of the state in the United Nations, in which it has been represented as an observer since 2012, to a full member state, in an attempt to benefit again from the escalation of global interest in resolving the Palestinian issue following the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, and seeking world recognition. The right of the Palestinians to a state of their own in the territories occupied in 1967.
Semantics of recognition
The recognition of the Palestinian state by 3 European countries is an indication of the beginning of the disintegration of the European position in support of Israel, which was also represented by the demand of a number of these countries to stop the war on Gaza, in contrast to the position that was formed after October 7, and that the number of countries that will recognize Palestine is a candidate. To rise.
It is noteworthy that Sweden was the only European country in the European Union that recognized the State of Palestine in 2014, in addition to the recognition of 8 other countries before joining the Union, namely Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Malta, while Iceland and the Vatican also recognized it, and they are outside the framework of Palestine. the Union.
This means that within a short period, 13 European countries will have recognized the Palestinian state out of the 27 countries included in the European Union, and this in itself is an important gain for Palestine and the Palestinian cause, as the total number of countries that recognize Palestine now reaches 146 countries out of 193 member states of the United Nations. .
Indeed, the main motive for the approval of an increasing number of countries for the Palestinian state is not only due to what happened in the Al-Aqsa flood and beyond. Rather, there is a desire on the part of the countries of the world to punish the entity for committing massacres against humanity, genocide, and war crimes without finding any deterrent.
In this context, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez stated that “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not have a peace project for Palestine,” despite the fact that European countries critical of the recognition believe that “this recognition could be interpreted by Hamas as a reward for its terrorism.”
This means that Israel’s relations with the European side will go into successive crises, especially with the occupation government preparing to take diplomatic measures against the recognizing countries.
The American position – which constitutes a political protection network for the entity – also witnessed a decline in its power and hegemony after the decision of the United Nations General Assembly to support the right of the Palestinians to a state, in addition to its differences with the entity over the issue of statehood, which represents the core of the American move that wants to put the region in order and prepare for full-time independence. For the issues of China and Russia, he now sees that Israeli extremism constitutes a stumbling block to this strategy.
What will the Palestinians benefit?
The Liberation Organization resorted to declaring the establishment of the state in the territories occupied in 1967, known as the Independence Document, on November 15, 1988, as an attempt by the late leader Yasser Arafat to reap the fruits of the uprising that broke out on December 8, 1987, within the framework of a political path that began with the points program. Ten years in 1974, which called for the establishment of a Palestinian national authority over any part of Palestinian land liberated.
Through this move, the Authority is trying to take advantage of the legal significance of recognition, which means the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to choose their political, economic and social system as stipulated in the principles of international law and the Charter of the United Nations.
This ultimately means that the Palestinian people will refuse to negotiate this right, but this matter has not passed through the Security Council, and it is not expected to do so in light of the American veto, and since the Palestinians do not have an existing state on the ground, the matter will remain subject to direct negotiation with the occupation in light of the imbalance. forces in the region, without diminishing the symbolic and political significance that does not mean a change on the ground.
The Palestinian Authority still believes that the peaceful political path is the safest way to achieve this right, which contradicts the principle on which the Al-Aqsa Flood operation by Hamas was based, and the resistance program it adopts in the West Bank and which the Authority is fighting.
Hence, the discrepancy in Palestinian approaches, and even the Authority’s endeavor to fight the resistance, hinders the integration of Palestinian political efforts in favor of an independent state, even though Hamas did not oppose it as a temporary solution without giving up the rest of the Palestinian land, as stated in its political document issued in 2017.
Since the entity is still obstructing any effort to reach this stage, this reinforces the conviction that the Palestinians still have more resistance work to establish the Palestinian right, and an attempt to arrange a national incubator for the resistance that works to invest it politically according to an agreed upon national program.
There is no doubt that the continued work of the Palestinian Authority through the peace mechanism while excluding resistance work and in light of a dysfunctional equation with the occupation will not produce results that enhance Palestinian rights, as the entity will impose its vision of the entity that belongs to the Palestinians, which does not rise to the level of a state over the entire 1967 territories (as a minimum ambition). Palestinian).
We recall here that since the signing of the Oslo Accords on September 13, 1993 and the subsequent establishment of Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and Jericho to include the West Bank, the Palestinians have not been able, through negotiations, to obtain any form of real sovereignty over their land, and the final status negotiations have been postponed. Several times until these negotiations reached a dead end, in which the final form of the Palestinian entity was supposed to be discussed, which successive occupation governments refused to take the form of an independent state.
In the best case of negotiation during the Camp David negotiations in 2001, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered to establish a state devoid of sovereignty and weapons, and without control over natural resources, the air, and the sea, provided that the Palestinians give up Jerusalem, which was rejected by the late President Yasser Arafat, and was the reason for his assassination. 2004.
Therefore, without changing the balance of power, the diplomatic move of the Palestinian state continues to acquire only a symbolic nature, and there is no hope of changing the Israeli position except by continuing the Palestinian struggle in its various forms, the most important of which is resistance.
Perhaps it is useful to remember that the PLO was unable, through decades of diplomatic representation in a number of world capitals, to raise global interest in Palestine, while the “Al-Aqsa Flood” succeeded in doing so because it expressed the Palestinians’ determination to adhere to their rights and revealed to the world the ugliness of what the occupation is doing.