The Spanish Government is in a moment of diplomatic hyperactivity about the Gaza conflict, which is entering its sixth month and adding to the destruction and killings an enormous famine.
Pedro Sanchez organiza meetings of European countries inclined to recognize the Palestinian State in the EU, sends letters to the European Commission to review whether Israel breaches the Human Rights clause of the Association Agreement. He orders the Army to launch humanitarian aid from the air in the Strip, an emergency measure undertaken for the first time by Spain this Wednesday, in the wake of other countries such as the United States and France. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has already made four tours of the region. For her part, the Vice President of the Government, Yolanda Díaz, announces a trip to Ramallah (which has not taken place) and receives in Madrid Palestinian lawyers who are handling Israel’s case for genocide in The Hague.
Pedro Sánchez very soon established his position towards what is now the bloodiest conflict in the area in decades (32,000 Palestinian deaths and 1,200 Israeli deaths). Spain condemns the terrorist attacks by Hamas and demands the release of the Israeli hostages, but calls for a ceasefire, criticizes Israel for violating the laws of war and denounces the killing of civilians. Now, she insists that Spain will recognize Palestine as a State before the end of the legislature, provoking the wrath of the Tel Aviv Government. In the medium term, our country wants to lead a peace conference that repeats that of Madrid in 1991, which was the first step towards the Oslo peace agreements two years later and gave rise to the best years in the Palestinian Occupied Territories.
With all these issues in his suitcase, Pedro Sánchez will undertake a tour of Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, three key countries in the Palestinian issue. The first, because it hosts the largest diaspora of Palestinians: three million refugees, mostly expelled by Israel in previous wars. The second, because it not only houses Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political wing of Hamas in exile, but is being a key actor in the negotiations for a ceasefire, which are currently unsuccessful. Saudi Arabia, finally, seems to be unintentionally at the epicenter of this latest escalation of the conflict: one of the possible unacknowledged objectives of the Hamas attack of October 7 would be to derail the Saudi regime’s rapprochement with Israel. Sánchez’s visit will be the first visit to that country by a Spanish president since that made by fellow socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in 2009.
International pro-Palestinian pole
The Spanish position was developed on the margins of the international conference in Egypt on October 21, just two weeks after the Hamas attacks on Israeli territory. Then, Sánchez met with three leaders who would later express a position more similar to the Spanish one and critical of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu: the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres; the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell; and the president of the European Council, Charles Michel.
Publicly, The Spanish president established his position on November 23 against Netanyahu. The rest of the Western leaders had visited the Israeli chief executive to express their solidarity in the first days of the offensive against Hamas in Gaza. Sánchez was one of the last to arrive, and when he arrived it was already clear that the Hebrew Army was causing a disturbance. very high number of civilian deaths. Sánchez made a mess of it in person to Netanyahu, who defended himself by recalling ETA’s terrorism, among other arguments. Days later, and given the Spaniard’s insistence on doubting whether Israel was respecting the laws of war, Tel Aviv ordered its ambassador in Madrid to temporarily withdraw.
But since then, almost all world leaders have aligned themselves with the Spanish position. Germany, a historic ally of the Jewish State, is already talking about imperative need for a ceasefire and unacceptable famine (1.1 million people are already in phase five of food shortage, the maximum, according to the IPC food security index). The United States has just lifted its veto in the United Nations Security Council and has allowed a resolution that demands that the conflict stop for at least two weeks. The Israeli Executive has launched a chain of reproaches at its allies, which increasingly underlines its international isolation.
It is foreseeable that Sánchez will be very well received in those countries. In general, Spanish foreign policy towards the conflict has been praised by the governments of Arab and Muslim countries.
It is known that he is going to meet in Amman, the capital of Jordan, with King Abdullah II, and it is expected that perhaps also with his wife, Rania of Jordan, an icon in the defense of Palestinian rights. She herself is Palestinian and has used her international public image to call for a ceasefire.
Will Sánchez take advantage of any of these meetings to announce that Spain recognizes Palestine as a State? Will he announce any concrete progress in the peace conference he proposes, an idea to which the countries of the Arab League, the Islamic Conference and the 27 of the European Union have already adhered?
Four tours of Albares
The head of Spanish diplomacy has also had a hectic work schedule in the region in recent months. So far this year, José Manuel Albares has made four tours and visited seven of the relevant countries.
At the end of January he was in Lebanon and Iraq, where the country’s authorities thanked the Spanish “bravery” in establishing a position on Gaza.
At the beginning of February he launched his second trip, to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to “promote solutions” in the Middle East.
Already in March, the Foreign Minister traveled to Jordan where, in addition, he ratified Spain’s unequivocal support for UNRWA, the United Nations agency that works with Palestinian refugees and that Israel wants to dismantle because, he claims, it supports terrorism. of Hamas. In Amman, Albares said that “Spain is going to recognize the Palestinian State” in a “solemn and official” wayunderscoring the president’s promise.
Now outside the Middle East, but as a very influential country on the ‘pro-Palestinian’ side, the minister has made a visit to Turkey, in which he asked the Ankara Government to help launch a peace conference.
New clash with Israel
Where the Foreign Minister has not yet been has been in Israel. The Government of Tel Aviv has shown again this week its anger with the Spanish Government, which it considers to be “rewarding Hamas” with its initiatives to create a pole within the European Union to unilaterally recognize the Palestinian Statethus joining the other 139 in the world that already do so.
“The comments by the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, on the recognition of the State of Palestine, as well as the joint statement from Spain, Malta, Slovenia and Ireland that they are prepared to recognize the Palestinian State, constitute a reward for terrorism“said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a press release published on the X network last Monday.
Albares has described it as “nonsense” to say that terrorism is supported by supporting the creation of a Palestinian State. “The Palestinian people have the right to a land and a hope” and that, says the minister, “is not incompatible with the State of Israel.”