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Israel recalled its ambassadors to Spain, Ireland and Norway on Wednesday to deliver a “severe reprimand” to the three countries after they committed to recognise Palestinian statehood next week.
Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz branded the show of support for the Palestinians a “folly”, adding: “History will remember that Spain, Norway and Ireland decided to award a gold medal to the murderers and rapists of Hamas.”
The move will add to the number of the EU’s 27 members that recognise Palestinian statehood, but does not include heavyweights from the bloc. It comes amid a split within the EU over a move by the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court to seek arrest warrants for the leaders of Israel and Hamas.
In a blow to their hopes of a broader diplomatic push, other countries that Madrid and Dublin had courted in recent weeks to recognise a Palestinian state, including Belgium, Malta and Slovenia, did not immediately follow suit.
Ireland’s Taoiseach Simon Harris said he was “confident further countries will join us”. The trio said their move would take effect on May 28.
Norway, which brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians in the early 1990s, said recognition of a Palestinian state was “the only alternative that offers a political solution for Israelis and Palestinians alike: two states, living side by side, in peace and security”.
Ireland referred to its own pitch for international recognition as it struggled for independence just over a century ago. “From our own history, we know what it means,” Harris said.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 35,000 people following Hamas’s October 7 attacks in Israel, had “no peace project for Palestine”.
“Fighting the terrorist group Hamas is legitimate and necessary . . . But Netanyahu is creating so much pain and so much destruction and so much rancour in Gaza and the rest of Palestine that the two-state solution is in danger,” Harris said.
Israel warned on Tuesday that Ireland’s recognition for a Palestinian state “will lead to more terrorism, instability in the region and jeopardise any prospects for peace” and urged: “Don’t be a pawn in the hands of Hamas.”
The Palestinian Authority welcomed the three countries’ move, saying they had “demonstrated their unwavering commitment to the two-state solution and to delivering the long-overdue justice to the Palestinian people”. It called on other countries to follow suit.
Wednesday’s announcement follows a UN General Assembly vote this month backing a Palestinian application to become a full member state.
Most UN member states already recognise Palestinian statehood and Palestine is already recognised by Sweden, which acted alone in 2014, and several central and eastern European members that had recognised it before joining the EU, among them Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
France has yet to take the step and has been seeking to rally other countries, including the UK, to back a wider bid. One official said it wanted “this moment [of recognising a Palestinian state] to be a solution, not just taking a position”.
The UK said in January that it could recognise Palestinian statehood as part of UN efforts to secure a two-state solution in the region.
Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, on Wednesday wrote to Netanyahu, demanding “punitive steps” be against the Palestinian Authority in response to the European decisions and other Palestinian moves on the international stage, including seeking action against the Jewish state by the ICC.
Smotrich called for a series of measures including a major expansion of Jewish settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, the establishment of a new settlement for every country that recognises Palestinian statehood, and the freezing of Israeli tax transfers to the PA.
The PA, established in 1994, exercises limited self-rule in parts of the West Bank but lost control of the Gaza Strip to Hamas nearly two decades ago. Both territories are viewed by the international community as the basis for a Palestinian state.
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