The recognition of these three countries has more symbolic meaning than practical effects, since, today, Palestine does not meet the requirements to exist as a State. However, Spain, Norway and Ireland insist that it will provide a boost to the two-state solution.
The recognition of the Palestinian State by Spain, Ireland and Norway It is a boost to the Palestinian cause on a symbolic and diplomatic levelbut with little impact on the groundwhere the borders have been blurred by the occupation, between settler settlements, concrete walls and the Israeli military presence.
Recognizing a new State means granting it legal status, but this political decision in itself does not create that State or guarantee its sovereignty. In the specific case of Palestine, not even the assumptions of having a population defined, a territory delimited or a government to exercise authority over him. Furthermore, the war in Gaza, which has caused more than 36,000 deaths, most of them civilians, makes it even more difficult to give substance to recognition.
The three states, which join the more than 140 that already recognized Palestine, defend the “historic and memorable” gesture as a boost to the peace process in the Middle East and the two-state solution.
The decision will add even more pressure on Israel, which has withdrawn its ambassadors and is increasingly isolated after seven months of cruel offensive. The gesture also seeks to create a climate in favor of more recognition in Europe; In that sense, both Malta and Slovenia have announced that they are considering taking the step.
What does it mean in practice?
The recognition of the State makes it possible to formalize political relations with Palestine and sign international treaties, among other initiatives. Diplomatic offices now have the category of embassiesso the positions of ‘representatives’ become ‘ambassadors’.
In the Spanish case, the Consulate General of Spain, located in Jerusalem, until now served as an embassy and, in practice, the consul served as ambassador and channeled the relationship with the Palestinian National Authority (PNA).
Among the questions would be whether the three countries will take the step of recognizing Jerusalem as capital Palestine, something they have not done until now.
What territories would make up the Palestinian State?
The three European countries recognize the Palestinian State within the borders left after the Six Day War. 1967, which are those agreed upon in the Oslo Accords in 1993, which gave birth to a State that never materialized. These divisions already represented a considerable loss of territory as established in the UN Partition Plan of 1947, prior to the creation of the State of Israel.
The borders of ’67 included West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Stripbut much of that territory is today controlled by Israel.
60% of the occupied West Bank is today under civil and military administration of Israel, where they have proliferated
There are more than 140 Jewish settlements that are legal under Israeli law—and dozens of illegal ones—in which more than 700,000 Israeli settlers live, including East Jerusalem.
The current map of the West Bank is a ‘Gruyer cheese’ where Palestinian cities and villages have been disconnected due to the proliferation of Jewish colonies, roads whose use is prohibited to Palestinians, and Israeli military posts that make movement difficult.
In the case of Gaza, it is unknown how the territory will be delimited when the war ends. The absence of a post-war plan leaves all possibilities open, while the hardline wing of the Israeli Government insists on its interest in reoccupying the enclave – although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denies this.
How would both territories be connected?
The two main Palestinian territories, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, have been territorially disconnected for decades, creating two different political and social realities.
Israel has eliminated any form of territorial continuity, even preventing family ties. The separation has deepened due to the political division and because both territories are in practice governed by different entities.
To this we must add the 4 million Palestinians who live outside Palestine – most in Jordan and Lebanon, but also in Europe or the US -, descendants of those who fled their homes during what they call the Nakba (“catastrophe”, in Arabic), in 1948, when the State of Israel was created, and they were never allowed to return.
Spain advocates creating a corridor between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
What would be the capital of Palestine?
The Palestine Partition Plan devised by the UN in 1947 conferred special status on Jerusalem, but the armistice of 1949, after the first Arab-Israeli war, de facto separated the city into two halves, leaving the western part under Israeli control. and the eastern part in Palestinian hands, at that time Transjordan.
However, the Six-Day War of 1967 changed the situation in the Middle East with consequences to this day. Israel militarily occupied Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, where the Old City and the holy places are located.
East Jerusalem, called to be the capital of a future Palestinian State, was annexed in 1980 by Israel, which considers the city its “single and indivisible” capital, and since then has exercised political and administrative control although more than 300,000 Palestinians live there. The Palestinian Authority government has been ‘de facto’ eliminated from East Jerusalem.
Who should govern?
The Oslo Agreement of 1993 divided the occupied Palestinian territories into three areas depending on whether civil and military control was exercised by the Palestinians or Israel, in a transitional model that was to culminate in a few years in its own State. For this, the Palestinian National Authority (ANP).
It was the first formula of self-government for the Palestinians, which should be provisional but which today is maintained with increasingly diminished power and which can only be exercised in small areas of West Bankin the face of the growing Israeli occupation and military presence.
On the Strip Loopthe disputes between Fatah – a secular faction formed by Yasser Arafat that controls the ANP – and Hamas They ended with the expulsion of the ANP and the seizure of power by the Islamists in 2007, deepening the fragmentation, not only of Palestinian society, but also of its territory.
Recognition of the Palestinians
The Palestinian people are stateless as they do not have their own State, and Palestinians do not have passports unless they have another nationality. To travel, a Palestinian from the West Bank needs a kind of ‘laissez passer’ from the ANP, an authorization from Israel, cross into Jordan through the Allenby crossing – subject to strict Israeli and Jordanian controls – and go to Amman airport to fly.
In the case of the Gaza Strip, blockaded by Israel since 2007, Gazans before the war only crossed into Israeli territory on rare occasions and with a time limit, with work permits, to receive medical treatment or, rarely, to visit relatives outside the enclave.
They could only travel abroad through Egypt, which in practice involved large bribes to both Hamas officials and Egyptians on both sides of the Rafah crossing.
Source: Eitb
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