Hours before the diplomatic crisis broke out between Spain and Israel as a result of the words of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, during his visit to Jerusalem, Ramallah and Rafah, the Israeli government had already decided not to attend the Union Forum due to the Mediterranean (UfM) that will begin tomorrow in Barcelona. The Spanish Executive set the objective of this meeting being a kind of peace conference based on the recognition of the two States: Israel and Palestine. But only the Foreign Minister of the Palestinian National Authority will attend the forum.
Israel will cancel the appointment because it claims that there has been a “change to the original agenda” without consulting, but there are also underlying reasons. Diplomatic sources cited by Europa Press point out that this forum should be “a practical platform to promote cooperation between different countries for the benefit of all the peoples of the Mediterranean”, but the changes in the agenda “harm the purpose of the UfM and run the risk “to transform it into another international forum in which Arab countries criticize Israel.”
In this sense, the UfM admits that initially it was planned to address “the efforts of the organization in its 50th anniversary and its reform”, but that the foreign ministers will focus their debates on Israel and Palestine as a result of the conflict in the Gaza Strip and the consequences in the region.
The truth is that since the war broke out, Spain raised the idea that the Euro-Mediterranean forum would become the seed that would allow it to end under the premise of the two States. The Government wanted to take advantage of the fact that the UfM is the only international forum, along with the UN, in which Israel and the Arab countries sit at the same table, and where Israel and Palestine are represented “on equal terms.”
In the words of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, the idea was not to not hold “one more conference, but rather that this could mean a definitive peace for the entire region, which will only come through the two-state solution.”
Barcelona had the opportunity to reissue the 1991 Madrid peace conference, which gave rise to the Oslo agreements three years later, but the absence of Israel puts an end to these plans.
Furthermore, for the meeting to be successful, an essential condition had to be met: the cessation of violence, but the four-day truce agreed upon by Israel and Hamas began on Friday and will end, precisely, after the start of the Barcelona summit.
The absence of Israel intersects with the diplomatic crisis unleashed between Israel and Spain in recent hours. During the trip of Sánchez and the Belgian Prime Minister, Alexander de Croo – who will pick up the baton of the semi-annual presidency of the EU –, the President of the Spanish Government condemned the massacre of civilians by Israel and declared his determination to recognize the State. Palestinian even if the EU does not. This position caused Israel to accuse the president of supporting terrorism, and to summon the Spanish ambassador for consultations. Albares, who deemed the reaction of the Jewish State “unacceptable,” did the same with the Israeli ambassador.
