In a divided Europe, (SOCIALIST) Spain emerges as a champion of Palestinian statehood

Agence France-Presse
April 5, 2024 

Demonstrators hold a canvas with a detail of Pablo Picasso's "Guernica" and a giant Palestinian flag during a protest in the Basque city of San Sebastian on January 28, 2024. © Ander Gillenea, AFP

Spain’s Pedro Sanchez has been a staunch critic of Israel’s Gaza offensive since the start of the conflict, standing out in a cautious and divided Europe. He is now pushing his EU partners to recognize a Palestinian state and take concrete action over Israel’s conduct of the war.

As he wrapped up his latest tour of the Middle East in Doha on Thursday, Spain’s Pedro Sanchez had a message for his Israeli counterpart, delivered on Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based channel Binyamin Netanyahu has vowed to take off the airwaves.

The European Union should review its strategic relationship with Israel if it determines that Israel has breached humanitarian law in Gaza, said Spain's Socialist leader, expressing his “doubts” that Israel was in compliance with its international obligations.

Sanchez said his country had stopped selling weapons to Israel, and urged other nations to do the same, pointing to a broad shift in the West towards greater criticism of Israel's Gaza offensive, which was triggered by October 7 Hamas-led massacres in southern Israel.

The Spanish leader reiterated his call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and for the international recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state with full membership in the United Nations, confirming Madrid would go ahead with plans to recognize Palistinian statehood.

While Sanchez did not give a timetable, his Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares confirmed on Wednesday that Madrid would recognize the State of Palestine before July.

“We need a real Palestinian state,” Albares said at a meeting with journalists in Brussels. “The Palestinian people must not be condemned to forever be refugees.”

Spats with Israel

Since the start of the war in Gaza, Spain’s Sanchez has emerged as one of the most forceful EU critics of Israel’s ferocious riposte, which has ravaged most of the Palestinian enclave and killed or maimed tens of thousands of its inhabitants.

In the weeks following Hamas's murderous October 7 rampage, as most Western countries including France offered unqualified support to Israel and its right to defend itself, Spain stood out in its insistence on a comprehensive solution to the decades-old Mideast conflict.

On a visit to Israel in November 23, Sanchez repeated his condemnation of the “terrible terrorist acts of Hamas”, saying he understood Israel’s “frustration and pain”. But he also told his Israeli counterpart that Israel must respect international law and end the “humanitarian catastrophe” in the Gaza Strip.

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez (right) pictured with his Israeli counterpart Binyamin Netanyahu (centre) and Belgium's Alexander De Croo in Jerusalem on November 23, 2023. © Borja Puig de la Bellacasa, AFP

“Any solution must be comprehensive. It’s in Israel’s interest to work for peace. And today peace means the establishment of a viable State of Palestine that includes the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem,” Sanchez told Netanyahu, a resolute opponent of Palestinian statehood.

After visiting a Kibbutz in southern Israel, where around 100 people were killed during the October 7 attack, Sanchez stopped at the Gaza Strip border and denounced what he called the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians, drawing an angry response from Israel which said the remarks gave terrorism a boost. Days later, as images of child victims and bombed-out buildings flooded social media, the Spanish leader said he had “serious doubts [Israel] is complying with international humanitarian law”, prompting Israel to recall its ambassador in Madrid.

In January, when most Western countries rushed to suspend their funding of UNRWA over Israeli allegations that some of its staff had a role in the October 7 attacks, Spain chose instead to triple its donations, citing the UN aid agency’s role in providing urgently needed aid to Gaza’s stricken civilian population.

The next month, as EU ministers failed to agree on a package of sanctions for violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank, Spain said it would press ahead with unilateral sanctions. It also asked Brussels to urgently review whether Israel is complying with its human rights obligations in the Gaza Strip, teaming up with the Irish government, another vocal critic of Israel’s military campaign.

Spain’s ‘shy’ diplomacy

Madrid’s vocal criticism of Israel has given unusual visibility to a country often seen as punching below its weight when it comes to shaping the EU’s foreign policy.

“Spain has often been a little shy when it comes to asserting itself as a key European player,” said Barah Mikail, a professor of international security and a Middle East expert at Saint Louis University’s Madrid campus.

“On the other hand, its strategic interests and its geographical and historical proximity to the Arab world mean there is plenty of potential for Spain to play a role in shaping a European policy that is orientated towards the Mediterranean,” Mikail added, noting that Spanish diplomacy had a history of activism on the Middle East conflict.

He pointed to the 1991 Madrid Conference, an attempt to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process through multilateral negotiations, which was credited with paving the way for the Oslo Accords and a relative rapprochement between Israel and several Arab states.

Kelly Petillo, program manager for the Middle East and North Africa at the European Council for Foreign Affairs, suggested a form of “continuity” between Sanchez’s current stance and broader Spanish policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“I think historically the issue of Palestinian statehood sees bipartisan support in Spain,” Petillo explained. “When Palestine was recognised by the UN General Assembly as a non-member observer state (in 2012), this was voted positively by Spain, under a right-wing government coalition.”

She described the stance adopted by the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell, a former Spanish foreign minister who has been a persistent critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza, as “a product of this years-long Spanish tradition of political support for Palestine”.

Sympathy for Palestine

Two years after the UN vote elevating Palestine to observer status, the Spanish parliament passed a first, non-binding resolution to recognize Palestinian statehood, though Sanchez – then the opposition leader – maintained at the time that official recognition should only happen in concert with the rest of the European Union.

His decision to push for unilateral recognition reflects both the urgency of the crisis in Gaza and the shifting power dynamics within Spain’s left-wing coalition government, which includes autonomist parties as well as parties to the left of Sanchez’s Socialists.

“The coalition has pushed the Socialist Party towards less ambiguous and more progressive stances,” said Federico Lopez-Terra, an associate professor of Hispanic studies at Swansea University, who highlighted the growing polarisation at play in Spanish politics, in which “adopting middle-ground stances may not be seen as strategically viable”.

Traditionally, Spain’s left-wing voters are broadly sympathetic towards the Palestinians, Lopez-Terra noted. So are many voters in the autonomous regions whose support Sanchez relies on.

“Considering Spain's political history of plural nationalisms within the state, it's to be expected that regions with a history of active struggles for independence and self-determination will exhibit greater sympathy towards the Palestinian cause,” he explained.

On December 8, more than 3,000 people lined up to form a human mosaic reproducing the Palestinian flag in the Basque town of Guernica, the site of the first major bombing of a civilian population in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, later immortalized by Pablo Picasso’s famous painting.

Such protests have been commonplace throughout Spain, without eliciting the controversies witnessed in other European countries, where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is perceived as a more sensitive subject owing to historical and sociological factors.

Mikail said Sanchez’s vocal criticism of Israel had allowed him to appear in step with the Spanish public’s outrage at the bloodshed in Gaza – and to “deflect attention” away from domestic issues that have proved far more divisive, such as the amnesty promised to Catalan separatist leaders in exchange for their support in forming a government.

“This initiative aligns with his strategy of developing a strong international reputation, rather than solely focusing on internal affairs, which has proven very successful,” added Lopez-Terra.

Leadership role

Sanchez’s activism on the international stage has turned him into the de facto leader of a group of like-minded EU nations, which includes Belgium, Ireland, Malta and Slovenia. The latter three announced last month they would work with Spain towards recognition of a Palestinian state – a move Israel said would represent a “prize for terrorism”.

“The trouble for Sanchez is that he is pushing for Palestinian statehood at a time when he has no voice within the UN Security Council,” said Mikail, adding that the Spanish leader had failed to capitalise on Madrid’s recent six-month presidency of the EU to push his Middle East agenda as he battled to form a government after inconclusive elections.

“As a result, he is relying on Malta,” whose month-long presidency of the Security Council began on April 1,” Mikail added.

Malta’s UN ambassador Vanessa Frazier told reporters on Monday that the Security Council’s standing committee for new members, which includes all 15 council nations, was expected to meet behind closed doors to consider a new application for full Palestinian membership of the UN, submitted by 140 countries. However, the bid is certain to fail, the US having promised to veto such a move.

At the EU level, Sanchez has a key ally in Borrell, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, a prominent advocate of a two-state solution.

“Josep Borrell's clear and vocal stance on the issue has bolstered Spain's perceived leadership within the European context,” said Lopez-Terra. “Sanchez knows that he's finding continuity at the institutional level through Borrell,” added Mikail. “It allows him to claim he is not contradicting the EU’s general stance regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

In reality, however, the EU is far from aligned when it comes to recognizing a Palestinian state, Petillo cautioned.

“Some EU member states are far from recognizing a Palestinian state, like Germany, whereas others have expressed a willingness to do so but only once a ceasefire and hostage release, at the very least, are achieved,” she said. “So I would say the main difference between Spain and other willing EU member states lies in the sequencing and implementation of this measure.”

Should Spain and the likes of Ireland press ahead without waiting, “it would be a very significant political development, which however will not change much on the ground,” Petillo said, stressing that it would take more a concerted effort by the international community to obtain concrete results.

Israel’s decision on Friday to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, amid widespread outrage over a strike that killed seven aid workers this week, was a first result, Petillo added.

“If EU states and the US don’t create real consequences for Israel’s actions, little will change,” she said. “Luckily, we just heard that other humanitarian crossings (into Gaza) will open, which shows that pressure does work.”