Pedro Sánchez: Keys | Which Palestinian state does Spain recognize when talking about the 1967 borders? | International

In the history of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians there has been a continuity since 1948 of what the Palestinian philosopher Edward Said defines as “the continuous alienation of the land” by Israel to the detriment of Israel’s rights. Israel is a country that has refrained from defining its borders and has not recognized the Palestinian territories it has occupied since 1967: Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. This is where the Palestinian State will be established that Spain has recognized this Tuesday in the Council of Ministers; it is the formalization of the decision announced last week with two other European countries: Ireland and Norway. These keys explain why these territories have been recognized for the Palestinian State and the reasons for the insistence of the Spanish government and President Pedro Sánchez in terms of this State entity being “viable”.

What does Sanchez mean when he refers to “a state on its 1967 borders”?

In 1947, a year before the creation of Israel, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a non-binding plan to divide the British Mandate of Palestine into two states. The plan stated that 70% of the Palestinian population would be given 45% of the land, while the 30% Jewish population, then mostly immigrants from central and eastern Europe, would be given 55% of the land. This distribution was rejected by Arab countries and the First Arab-Israeli War began. In 1949, Israel won and occupied 77% of historic Palestine. In the armistice signed that year, de facto borders were established between the areas already under Israeli control and the British Mandate territory: the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, representing 22% of historic Palestine. Israel also occupied these three areas after the Six-Day War in 1967. Hence reference was made to the borders of June 4, 1967, when the war broke out, or simply “the 1967 borders.”

Why does the government insist that this state must be “viable”?

That tagline clearly points to the fact that this Palestinian state is now basically unviable because of the Israeli occupation. In the Oslo Accords, between 1993 and 1995, which were expected to mark the beginning of a Palestinian state, After the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) negotiated to establish it on its pre-1967 borders, Israel accepted the creation of a provisional autonomous administration in Gaza and the West Bank managed by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) for a transitional period of five years. The ANP still maintains a government in the West Bank with certain privileges under Israeli occupation. Those agreements also divided the areas of Gaza and the West Bank into three zones, A, B and C. The ANP agreed to only very limited control over two of the three zones, A and B. The rest, 60% of its surface, zone C, remains completely under Israeli control, despite the fact that the Oslo Accords provided for it to be handed over to the Palestinian administration. Gaza was then considered Zone A, but Hamas took control of the strip after winning elections in 2007 and expelling the Palestinian Authority.

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What are the obstacles to this feasibility?

Even before the war in Gaza, the two main obstacles to the viability of a Palestinian state were considered to be the lack of territorial continuity and Israel’s continued appropriation of Palestinian land. Gaza and the West Bank are not contiguous – hence Sanchez’s point to a “corridor” between the two – and Israel has built a wall that separates East Jerusalem from the West Bank. Moreover, the map of the latter now resembles cheese. Gruyere By Israeli settler settlements, which serve as Israel’s vanguard for grabbing more Palestinian land and resources, building infrastructure, and expelling the native population. As for Jerusalem, Israel occupied the entire city in 1980 and declared it “its sole and indivisible capital.”

How many Israeli settlers live on Palestinian land?

In Area C of the West Bank, which is richest in natural resources, especially water, 450,000 Israeli settlers have settled in illegal settlements since 1967. Another 250,000 live in the Palestinian part of Jerusalem. Since the start of the Gaza War, Israel has intensified the plunder of Palestinian land, which it declares Israeli “state territory”, facilitating the construction or expansion of settler settlements. According to the Israeli peace NGO Peace Now, Israel has already annexed 16% of the West Bank by this method. In 2020, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a plan to annex 30% of the West Bank, which is currently on hold.

The Palestinian Authority lacks other fundamental attributes of a state, such as a monopoly on the use of force, which remains in the hands of Israel and its army. Israeli authorities control the borders In fact The Palestinian territories, with their air and sea zones; they impose their own currency, the shekel, and levy their own taxes, income which they withhold at will in part or in full in retaliation, as has been the case since the start of the Gaza war.

Is Spain’s recognition based on international legitimacy?

In his appearance this Tuesday, Pedro Sánchez referred to two UN Security Council resolutions, 242 of 1967, which urges Israel to completely withdraw from Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and 338 of 1973, which calls for the establishment of a “just and lasting” peace in the Middle East. The government “will not recognize changes in the 1967 boundary lines other than those agreed to by the parties,” Sánchez said. The president did not mention another key UN resolution: General Assembly 3236 of 1974, which includes self-determination as one of the “inalienable” rights of the Palestinian people.

And in traditional Spanish currency?

When Spain established full diplomatic relations with Israel in 1986, a letter delivered to Israeli officials by diplomat Maximo Cajal stated: Spain “reiterates its position of not recognising the Arab territories occupied by Israel in 1967.”

And in Palestine?

On November 15, 1988, at a meeting of the Palestinian National Council in Algiers, Yasser Arafat (1929-2004) declared the State of Palestine in the same territories now recognized by Spain. It contained the implicit assumption of the right of the State of Israel to exist, but in exchange for a total Israeli withdrawal, the creation of a Palestinian state and the return of the refugees registered by the United Nations, who now number around six million. None of those conditions have yet been met. The official position of Hamas, the radical movement that rules Gaza, is not to recognize Israel and even to call for its destruction, but for several years now some of its leaders have declared that they would accept a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders. In 2017, an organization document put it in writing; yes, without recognizing Israel’s right to exist anywhere in historic Palestine.

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