Spanish MPs vote for gov't to recognize Palestine


November 21, 2014
Sarah Benton


Demonstrators march with Palestinian flags in Valencia, Spain, during a protest against the Israeli offensive against Gaza, August 2014. Photo by Reuters

A significant step

Congress’s vote urging the Spanish government to recognize Palestine should not be viewed as side-taking

Editorial, El Pais
November 19, 2014

Terrorism once again showed its ugliest face in Jerusalem on Tuesday with the murder of five people who were stabbed while praying at a synagogue. Eight more were wounded by the two terrorists, who were shot down by police. This is a despicable act for which no justification or excuse could ever exist.

But attacks by fanatics cannot be used to condemn an entire people or to send important decisions off course. The violence that has ravaged the Middle East for decades – and has flared up in similar, and even worse episodes, on both sides – is a source of suffering for its victims and a source of concern for the international community.

Several European countries have adopted the strategy of forcing a way out of the deadlock by recognizing the Palestinian state, which already enjoys observer status at the United Nations. In this context – as Britain has already done and France soon will – the Spanish parliament has approved a non-binding motion put forward by the Socialist group, asking the government to recognize Palestine as a state.


Spain’s Congress votes in favour of recognizing Palestinian state

Deputies give near unanimous support to non-binding proposal agreed by PP and Socialists

By Miguel Gonzalez, El Pais
November 18, 2014

Spain’s lower house on Tuesday approved a non-binding proposal in favor of recognizing Palestine as an independent state.

Spain is now the third European country to do so after the United Kingdom and Ireland.

According to the final text of the proposal – which received 319 yes votes, one abstention, and two no votes – Congress “urges the government to recognize Palestine as a state.”

While the votes of Spain, the UK and Ireland are non-binding, they all carry significant political weight – so much so that ambassadors from several Arab countries attended Tuesday’s vote in Madrid, as well as a representative from the Palestine Authority. The Israeli embassy, meanwhile, had warned of the risks of a proposal such as this.

During the Congressional debate that preceded the vote, political parties began by condemning Tuesday morning’s attack at a synagogue in Jerusalem, in which four Israelis were killed, and two Palestinians involved in the incident were shot dead by Israeli authorities.

In their speeches, the Spanish politicians also focused on the importance of recognizing Palestine as a state as a means to move toward reconciliation in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Shortly before the vote, Foreign Minister José Manuel García Margallo thanked the parties for reaching a consensus, and expressed the “hope of the government that today’s historical session serves to unblock a negotiation process that has been stalled for many years.”

Margallo also committed to seeing that Spain, in its role as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, would “push for dialogue for peace, security and the development of a region that has been suffering for a long time.”

Negotiations
Former Foreign Minister Trinidad Jiménez, who is the spokesperson for the opposition Socialist group and backed the initiative, was involved in negotiations with the government on Monday to reach agreement over the text of the proposal.

The minor differences between the parties over the proposal included the Socialists’ desire for the government to recognize the Palestinian state, while the ruling Popular Party (PP) preferred a commitment to “launch an initiative” toward recognition. The latter had already been approved by Congress on a number of occasions, the last time during the State of the Nation debate in 2011.

But beyond those nuances, a cross-party agreement was reached, given that neither the proposal made by the Socialists nor the counteroffer from the PP set a time limit for recognition, as some of the smaller parties in Congress had demanded.

Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo explained on Monday that that would “give the government room for maneuver so that it can recognize [the Palestinian state] when it considers it to be opportune.”

But Margallo also admitted before the vote that “time is running out.” “Either we act quickly or the viability of the Palestinian state will be physically impossible,” he said, in reference to the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.

The most significant change to the final text did not result from cross-party negotiations, but rather from differences within the government itself. The document that the government sent to the Socialists included a paragraph that Israel strongly disliked: “If negotiations prove impossible or get delayed indefinitely, recognizing Palestine will be the way to advance the cause of peace in a process equally concerted with our partners in the European Union, taking fully into account the legitimate concerns, interests and aspirations of the State of Israel.”

This was a clear warning to Israel, which would lose the right to veto the recognition of the Palestinian state. The latter would no longer necessarily be the result of a peace agreement between both parties, and thus tied to it, but a pressure tool to advance or unblock negotiations. Sources consulted on the matter said the order came straight from La Moncloa, the seat of government: it was Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy – through his Chief of Staff Jorge Moragas – who decided to strike out the paragraph to which Israel objected the most.

The chance of reaching a consensus among the European Union member states on the issue appears to be remote, and as such Spain will seek to coordinate with countries such as France, whose National Assembly is soon due to vote on a similar resolution to the one being prepared in Spain.

Jiménez said earlier this week that this was “the moment to recognize the Palestinian state,” a decision that does “not go against anything or anyone, in particular Israel,” but instead aims to contribute to the peace process, which has, she continued, “spent too much time stalled,” and will be solved by the peaceful coexistence of two states.

The majority of the other political parties in Congress decided to support the initiative that was negotiated between the Socialists and the PP, although some considered that it does not go far enough.


Jerusalem slams Spain’s parliament for ‘Palestine’ recognition vote

By Herb Keinon and Eitan Arom, JPost
November 19, 2013

The foreign ministry put out a caustic statement on Wednesday, saying that rather than voting on Tuesday to recognize a Palestinian state, the Spanish parliament would have been much better off had it condemned the Palestinian terrorist attack on a Jerusalem synagogue earlier in the day.

The ministry was responding to a decision by the lower house of Spain’s parliament that overwhelmingly passed a nonbinding motion calling on Madrid to “recognize Palestine as a state.” This move, which took place on the same day as the Har Nof attack, followed similar motions passed recently in British and Irish parliaments.

“The Spanish parliament’s declaration only pushes away further the chances of reaching an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, because it encourages the Palestinians to take extreme positions,” the Foreign Ministry said. “It would have been better had the Spanish parliament seen fit to denounce the abominable massacre in a Jerusalem synagogue carried out by Palestinians who were incited.”

Spanish Ambassador Fernando Carderera Soler, in an Israel Radio interview, acknowledged that the timing of the vote came at “a very bad moment.” But, he said, “a terrorist attack is a terrorist attack, it cannot affect your life, and life has to go on, and so [it] is also with the parliament.”

The ambassador took issue with the Foreign Ministry statement, saying the motion’s text was “balanced” and “very positive for all parties, including Israel.”

“It doesn’t worsen the situation, and this is not what the Spanish parliamentarians want to do, the Spanish parliamentarians want to provide an incentive for negotiations,” he said.

Asked how Madrid would respond were the Knesset to pass a resolution backing Basque or Catalonian independence, the ambassador said the Knesset would have “no ground whatsoever” to get involved in those issues, “not historically, legally, politically or economically.”

Following Tuesday’s vote, Spanish Foreign Minister José García-Margallo expressed “satisfaction that all [political parties] have decided to vote for this declaration.”

He added that just as Spanish politicians must arrive at accords in the parliament, “so too we have to arrive at accords in the European Union if we want a foreign policy that’s common and truly continental.”

The position of the Spanish government has been to seek recognition of Palestinian statehood as the end result of bilateral negotiations, rather than unilaterally recognizing it outside such a process.

Spain’s position takes on an increased significance heading into 2015, when it is to assume a twoyear temporary position on the United Nations Security Council, a body whose support is necessary for Palestinians to become a UN member state. Spain is replacing Luxembourg on the council.

Margallo said Monday before the vote that “the worst service we can give to the cause of peace in the Middle East is for each country to continue advancing national, isolated solutions and not a joint solution.”

The bill’s main proponent, former Spanish foreign minster Trinidad Jiménez, opened Tuesday’s legislative session by restating her “conviction that the solution to the conflict in the Middle East depends on the coexistence of two states.”

She said because “negotiations have been cut off again and again,” it is necessary to “take another step forward” towards Palestinian statehood and regional peace.

“It’s not against Israel, and it’s not against Palestine,” she said Monday in an interview with The Jerusalem Post. “It’s only to push parties to negotiate, to sit down.”

Spain’s Congress of Deputies passed the motion after the largest opposition party, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, led by Jiménez, rejected an amendment from other opposition groups to fix a time line for the recognition of “Palestine,” Spanish newspaper El País reported.

But the more significant compromise was between the opposition and the ruling Popular Party, which added a paragraph promoting an international solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that “takes fully into account the legitimate worries, interests and aspirations of the State of Israel,” the newspaper reported.

The motion passed with 319 votes in favor, two opposed and a single abstention.

The motion is set apart from the ones taken in the Irish and British parliaments by stipulating that Spain’s recognition of a Palestinian state must be the result of talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

That stipulation emerged from negotiations between the Popular Party, which insisted on it, and Socialist Workers’ Party, whose original draft motion on recognizing a Palestinian state made no mention of such a condition. Another poignant change to the original draft was the dropping of the word “contiguous” from a line that describes the future Palestinian state as “a sovereign, democratic and independent state.”

Behind the scenes, ACOM, a small lobbying group that supports Israel and is run from Madrid by Jews and non-Jews, was working around the clock to convince the Popular Party to insist on the changes to the original motion.

“We were sweating blood to get this done, and I still can’t believe we pulled off this achievement,” said Daniel Fernandez of ACOM, who had 20 meetings this past month with lawmakers and politicians over the issue.

Some in the opposition took positions during Tuesday’s session that went further than the resolution.

Basque politician Rafael Larreina took the podium wearing a red, white and green scarf that said “Palestine” in English. He condemned the recent violence in Israel, including a terrorist attack that killed five in Jerusalem and the hanging death of a Palestinian bus driver that Israel Police ruled a suicide, saying those events “lead to the conclusion that it’s urgent” to recognize a Palestinian state.

Addressing a gallery of diplomats from the Arab world, Communist politician Joan Josep Nuet said Israel, “invades Palestinian land and kills its people,” and called for the urgent recognition of a Palestinian state with “a capital that is called Jerusalem.”

Referring to the French parliament’s November 28 vote on Palestinian statehood, he said “the news tomorrow will be that we urge the government of Spain to recognize the state of Palestine, like Sweden has done as well, just like France will do next week, and how other European countries will possibly do following our example.”

JTA contributed to this report.

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