Before going to the United Arab Emirates, to participate today in the climate summit being held in Dubai – where he will again coincide with the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog -, Pedro Sánchez lit the fuse of a new conflict yesterday diplomat with the Hebrew State, the second in just two weeks.
“I have serious doubts that they are complying with international humanitarian law”, admitted the president of the central government to TVE, in his first interview in this new mandate, in the face of the military offensive deployed by Israel in the Gaza Strip, which has already more than 13,000 dead, almost half of them children.
The reaction of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to Sánchez’s statements was, once again, angry and fulminating. After calling his words “shameful”, “on the same day that Hamas terrorists are murdering Israelis in our capital, Jerusalem”, Netanyahu ordered, as he had already done on November 24, to immediately summon the ambassador of Spain to Israel, Ana Salomón, to convey a harsh “reprimand”.
But this time the diplomatic crisis went up another notch, and the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, Eli Cohen, summoned his ambassador to Spain, Rodica Radian-Gordon, to Jerusalem for consultations.
“After the outrageous statements of the president of the Spanish Government, who once again repeated baseless accusations, I decided to summon our ambassador to Spain to hold consultations in Jerusalem”, announced Cohen.
“Israel is acting and will continue to act in accordance with international law, and will continue the war until all hostages are returned and Hamas is removed from Gaza,” said the Israeli foreign minister.
“A single entity is responsible for the massacre on October 7 and for the current situation in the Gaza Strip: the terrorist organization Hamas,” emphasized Cohen. And he stressed that Hamas “is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity against the citizens of Israel, as well as against the residents of the Gaza Strip.”
After the tour of the Middle East with which he started the new mandate, and which culminated at the Rafah border crossing – the southern gate of Gaza – opening the door for Spain to recognize the State of Palestine still unilateral if the EU delays the decision, Sánchez yesterday insisted on questioning Israel’s devastating reaction to the Gaza Strip, after the terrorist attacks by Hamas.
Despite the diplomatic clash already registered last week, given the words that the Spanish president and the Belgian prime minister, Alexander de Croo, pronounced in Rafah, Sánchez warned yesterday that the situation of relations with Israel was already “correct” .
That day, Cohen summoned the ambassadors of Spain and Belgium to Israel, for “a harsh conversation of reprimand”, in the face of words that the Netanyahu Government interpreted as “support for terrorism”. The Spanish Government, at the same time, summoned the Israeli ambassador in Madrid, to ask for explanations in the face of accusations that it described as “totally false and unacceptable”.
Since then, the waters seemed to have returned to their course, until yesterday the diplomatic conflict was revived. “Friendly countries also have to tell each other the truth”, justified Sánchez yesterday, before the relationship with Israel was set on fire again.
Sánchez assured that from the first moment he condemned the terrorist attacks of Hamas. “What Hamas did to Israel is absolutely despicable, execrable,” he stressed. And he recalled that in his last meeting with Netanyahu, last week in Jerusalem, “I had to watch for twenty minutes attacks and crimes by Hamas in Israel, and it was very sad and very hard to see the images that the Israeli government on these attacks”.
He thus reiterated the “condemnation and repulsion” of these attacks by the Islamist organization that governs Gaza, and demanded the release of the hostages who remain kidnapped, “without any conditions and immediately”.
“But with the same conviction, we must also tell Israel that it must support its actions based on international humanitarian law. And with the images we are seeing, and the growing number, especially of boys and girls, who are dying, I have serious doubts that they are complying with this international humanitarian law”, warned Sánchez on TVE yesterday.
And the box of thrones was opened again with Netanyahu.
The Spanish president insisted that “it is clear that we must come up with a political solution to put an end to this crisis”. This political solution, in his opinion, only “goes through the recognition of the Palestinian State”.
Congress already approved in 2014 a non-law proposal, unanimously, which demanded from the Government the recognition of the Palestinian State. But Sánchez alleged that the same resolution linked this recognition to the action of other European countries, so that they “take the step at the same time as Spain”. Sánchez recalled that more than 140 countries around the world already recognize the Palestinian State, including European countries such as Hungary and Sweden, which recognized it unilaterally.
“The situation has changed”, warned Sánchez, to justify his position, because he assured that the Arab countries demand “facts”, and not more peace agreements that are later broken. “We have to sit down to be able to reach an agreement on facts, and these facts are that the West, Europe, recognize the Palestinian State”, he insisted that the Arab countries are demanding. “And I think they have a point, because during all these years we have seen how Israel, in a systematic way, has been occupying Palestinian territory, in the West Bank. And now we see what is happening in Gaza. Therefore, we must address this debate”, he defended.
“First, for a moral conviction, because what we are seeing in Gaza is not acceptable. And what they do in Gaza after this spiral of violence ends is also not acceptable,” he said.
But also for the same geopolitical interest of Europe, he argued, since the expansion of the conflict in Lebanon, Egypt or Jordan could destabilize the entire Mediterranean. “Can Europe really afford to have two open war fronts, one in Ukraine and another in the Middle East? Politics and the diplomatic way must prevail”, he claimed.