More than 130 countries, including several European ones, recognize the Palestinian State: a declaration of intent without effect
The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, opened yesterday to recognizing the Palestinian State during his thorny trip to the Middle East. “It is something that many EU countries believe we have to do together, but if this is not the case, Spain will make its own decision,” he warned.. In Moncloa it is insisted that the “two-state solution” – Israel and Palestine – is, beyond an old demand that has been repeated like a mantra without any success by the international community for decades, the starting point for solve the Arab-Israeli problem. However, the reality is that to date it has been of little use that almost three quarters of the nations of the globe do recognize the existence of the Palestinian State – neither powers as decisive as the United States nor the majority of the members of the European Union-.
The United Nations General Assembly resolution of November 1947 recommended the partition of the territory of Palestine then still under the British Mandate into two states: one Israeli and one Palestinian, with the city of Jerusalem to remain under a international trusteeship regime. Israel declared its independence a year later and, as is well known, the Arab countries did not recognize it, which places us before the origin of the latent conflict more than seven decades later.
It would not be until 1988 – after several regional wars – when the Palestine Liberation Organization proclaimed the establishment of the Palestinian State, something not clearly recognized by Israel, which is considered by the UN as the “occupying power” of the Palestinian territory.. Among the many problems that the issue raises is that no one would know how to define its borders today, since thinking of an independent country with the square and bevel lines drawn in 1947 is already more than a chimera.. Another of the great obstacles would be how to resolve the status of Jerusalem, the essential capital for the two contending parties.
But as soon as the PLO was proclaimed, dozens of countries rushed to Palestinian diplomatic recognition, including all Arab or Muslim-majority nations, and virtually all of the countries of the Non-Aligned Movement.. Currently, 136 nations recognize Palestine.. Several European countries including: Malta, Albania, Greece, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Iceland and Sweden.
Its request for international recognition has been of no use to Palestine, since it has not been able to exercise any control of the territory over which it claims sovereignty.. The most it has achieved in these decades of conflict was the establishment of a Palestinian National Authority under the Oslo Accords (1933) to exercise limited administration over part of the territories of the West Bank and Gaza (in the Strip the coming to power of Hamas left the ANP out of the game).
In 2014, the Congress of Deputies urged the Government then led by Mariano Rajoy (PP) to recognize Palestine, a request that remained in limbo.. Two years earlier, our country had supported the granting of observer state status in the United Nations – an organization of which it is not a full member. The PSOE included “recognizing the Palestinian State” in its 2015 electoral program. And after the arrival of Pedro Sánchez to the Government on the back of the motion of censure that removed Rajoy from Moncloa, its then Foreign Minister, Josep Borrell, announced a “internal process” of consultations with their European counterparts to reach a common position on Palestine. Also then the issue was buried by other priorities of international politics. We will see what happens now with Pedro Sánchez's announcement.